For Dell’s Quest Software, BYOD Puts Users First with IT’s Blessing

For Dell’s Quest Software, BYOD Puts Users First with IT’s
Blessing
Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how Quest, a Dell company, leverages BYOD and
VDI to improve user productivity, application support, and security.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Sponsor: Quest Software

Dana Gardner: Hi, this is Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, and you're
listening to BriefingsDirect.

Today, we present a sponsored podcast discussion on the growing acceptance of
bring your own device (BYOD) at enterprises. We will examine why the users’
personal use, ownership and maintenance of the computing and mobile devices of
their choosing is making more sense for more organizations. We'll learn about
how and why through the example of a company that has begun supporting
BYOD, even with the full blessing of IT.

We'll see how this has had benefits far beyond just the users’ sense of empowerment, in terms of
meaningful IT advancements along the lines of centralized applications, control and support,
virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) use, better disaster recovery (DR) practices, even better data
protection and more. [Disclosure: Quest Software is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Here to share insights into how BYOD can work well at Quest Software, and even into their new
corporate owner Dell, we are joined by Carol Fawcett, the CIO of Dell Software and the former
long-term CIO of Quest Software. Welcome, Carol.

Carol Fawcett: Thank you, Dana.

Gardner: Good to have you with us. I'm really intrigued with this BYOD thing. Just a year or
two ago, people were saying, "What?" and scratching their heads, saying, "Are you kidding?
You're going to let your users choose their device?" But as this has been put into place and some
of the implications have been thought through, it seems to be an interesting possible benefit set.

So let me start with where you began. What were the challenges, or what were the forces or
trends at work, that got you at Dell Software involved with BYOD at all?

Fawcett: Great question, Dana. I don’t think that we actually started down the path of a BYOD
project, because as many listening will know, this started years ago. We started a project where
we said we wanted to enable our users to access applications and data on a select set of devices,
which for us started with the obvious, the iPad. Then came the Android smartphones, and the list
continued on.

This list will continue to grow as time goes on and new devices are brought in. The good news is
that there are product offerings now in the marketplace that are helping with that
demand and helping IT departments everywhere.

So instead of looking at it as BYOD, it’s now turned into a BYOX phenomena
that the C-level started. And as everyone in an organization saw them bringing
different devices into meetings, of course, they all wanted to jump on the
bandwagon. Slowly but surely, the wave began, and that's how we got where we
are today.

Gardner: This is interesting. There is a sort of direction from the user side, which is to say, they
probably like the choice and they had some personal preferences, or they've been able to be
productive in their personal lives using certain technologies.

Then there has also been this direction from the enterprise, which is to say, they like the idea of
centralizing, controlling apps and data, and delivering those out to devices (like with VDI) can be
a way of encouraging this control. It’s almost like a confluence of two forces -- VDI and BYOD
-- that make a whole greater than the sum of the parts, and we don’t see that very often in IT.

Pull it together

Fawcett: It’s one where you have to pull the needs and the demands of an IT organization
together with what the users want to go to, and that’s just what we're seeing out everywhere in
the industry. You definitely have to pull it together, try to satisfy the IT governance and the
policies that we set up, and balance that against what the users are saying: "I have to have this in
order to get my job done."

Gardner: As we learn more about how you've done this there, let’s also explain to our listeners
that Dell recently acquired Quest Software, and you were at Quest before that. So tell me a little
bit about how the confluence of these two companies also comes to bear on this issue of BYOD?

Fawcett: Absolutely. Let’s start with Quest Software. Where our sweet spot was, and still is, was
that we are the IT management software provider that offers a broad selection of software
solutions to simplify and solve the most common and most challenging IT problems for all areas
of an IT environment, from infrastructure, to applications, front-end to back-end, physical or
virtual, or even out in the cloud, for that matter.

Dell was looking for a company whose tools could and would complement and expand their own
software product offerings in the four strategic areas that they were focused on, which Quest
obviously aligned with. Those were systems management, security, business intelligence (BI)
and applications.

So you can really see why the partnership between Quest and Dell is such a great partnership and
offers so much to the industry.

Gardner: Let’s go back to how this came about and learn some lessons from your example, sort
of a use case perspective. If I were a CIO at another ﬁrm and I wanted to learn something from
your experience about moving to the support of multiple devices, what’s something that you
might offer in terms of what to think about early on, or some 20/20 hindsight insights that you
have?

Fawcett: As you approach the subject you have to really level-set with the team that this is not
about devices that an individual will want to use, but instead it's about individuals that are using
different devices accessing a set of applications inside your data center or under your control.

This individual, obviously, should have only one set of access rights across all the environments,
based on what that person's role is within the company. The different devices that they use should
really be an afterthought. Regardless of the device, their access rights need to remain consistent.

If I'm on a desktop, a laptop, or I bring in a tablet, or if I'm using my phone to get email, it
shouldn't matter. I should have that same, consistent UI and the same, consistent security rights
to get where I need to go to do my job.

Don't get me wrong -- and we know this; we hear it at every conference we go to -- IT will
struggle with the management of the many devices, no doubt. The only thing I can really suggest
there is something we did.

Different devices

We took that gigantic list that's out there and we said, "Where are we going to offer different
devices?" We're going to pick maybe 10 or 20 different devices, the most common ones that
people are bringing in, to support going forward, with the hope that you will be able to satisfy
about 80 percent of the employed population.

It does, however, all go to the user experience. You have to keep coming back to that, making
sure they have the ability to get to the right data and the right applications, with the correct
security rights for their job.

Gardner: It sounds as if some of the basic principles and beneﬁts of VDI come to play here.
That is to say, the provisioning, the control, the access management. So there is, I guess, a
fortuitous intersection of where VDI was entering into more and more organizations, particularly
those that want to control for security or regulatory purposes or intellectual property (IP) control,
that sort of thing, with this idea of multiple devices, multiple panes of glass, full mobility.

Did that play a role there too? Were you already going down a VDI track or trajectory and this
helped you get to BYOD quicker and better?

Fawcett: We started down the VDI path. In fact, many companies did years ago, when we
started to do more with offshore resources. We wanted to have offshore resources, we wanted to
give them desktops, but we wanted to make sure they were secure. That was the first introduction
of where VDI makes a lot of sense, where you want to secure data, have folks doing coding, but
knowing they can’t take code with them. That’s the way it started.

But then you start to find other use cases for VDI that really start to benefit the rest of the user
community. VDI is one of those things that started a while back and now has slowly grown into
this BYOD solution.

Gardner: Did you know how much BYOD was going on there? How did you find out and how
would it become something you could control?

Fawcett: That’s the question of the hour. I'd love to be able to say that we knew exactly how
many people were bringing in what kinds of devices, but the reality is, we are a technology
company, so some of our policies may be more relaxed than the policies of companies outside
our realm.

For example, in a bank or in the government, you can pretty much lock down an environment,
and every employee coming in knows it's going to be locked down because of who they are and
who they work for.

Our organization is made up of technologists located around the world. You know some of them
are looking for ways around the fences. It’s just built into their nature. It's almost like a
competition for them, "Can I figure this out?" Now add in the remote and traveling users and you
can see how this expands the challenge as time goes on.

Story of adoption

Gardner: Let’s hear a little bit about the story of adoption. You decided that this Pandora's box
was already open, no going back. BYOD is apparently here to stay, and we've got some head
start with VDI models and processes. Tell me how this panned out and what were some of the
major problems that you found you needed to solve?

Fawcett: As I mentioned before, for us, it was not about the devices. We tried to turn that
around, and it was kind of handy, because the whole consumerization of IT started to come into
the industry more and more. So we started to piggyback on that.

Think about it. A device is simply a means of accessing the apps and the data. Our vision instead
turned into trying to figure out a way to provide employees with a world-class overall user
experience, from beginning to end, encouraging the culture of openness and innovation.

In the end, our goal is to offer our end-users that ability to use a flexible set of tools and toolsets
with a familiar interface that allows for secure access anywhere, anytime. We want them to be

comfortable with those tools, as this will make them obviously more productive at doing their
jobs.

Gardner: Back to that interface issue. There is also this intersection of technology, with HTML5
being prominent. Did you have to make some choices about native support for apps across some
of these major platforms and popular devices? Or did you say, "Let’s try to come out with the
technological approach that can suit more than going native, try to do write once and deploy
anywhere or be consumed anywhere?" How did that kind of pan out?

Fawcett: We pretty much have a standard set of packaged applications. So it wasn't like we were
going to start rewriting any of those applications, or even the front-end. The good news is that
these applications are staying up with the industry and we're serving them up, so multiple device
types can access the data and still provide that consistent UI to the end-user.

But you still have to go back too and ask what makes sense. What kind of device makes sense,
for example, in an AP data entry department? Do you really think you are ever going to see --
and maybe one day, who knows, we will -- but do you ever think you will see a data entry clerk
using a tablet to do rapid data entry? Probably not. They're pretty tied to the 10-key. They like
the feel of the keyboard itself.

So you kind of sit back. What everyone is beginning to accept is that there are different devices
for different types of roles inside an organization. That's pretty much the path that we've
continued down as well.

At Quest, we have some wonderful tools that help us understand this environment and help us
recognize who is bringing in devices and how they're being used. We're getting a better sense of
what's in our environment so that we can start answering these.

Gardner: Let's look at this through the lens of IT. You decided that you're going to support
BYOD with the blessing of IT. What does this get for you? Are there some additional beneﬁts
other than empowering the end-user or giving them choice? What’s there for you in terms of
better support for your centralized operations, applications, data, and then some of those backup
and support functions that we all should be doing regularly?

Regular backups

Fawcett: One thing that really helps out IT is the thing you just mentioned, which is making
sure that laptops are being backed up on a regular basis. We know today, and I'm sure many of us
on this podcast are thinking, "How many of us actually back up our laptops on a regular basis?"

Those who do it are saying, "Well, doesn’t everyone do that?" But you could guess that inside of
a large organization, probably the majority are not responsible enough to do it, because it’s just
not in the forefront of their minds.

When you talk about VDI and having a desktop in the data center, it's a guaranteed thing,
because it's in the data center. Everything in the data center is backed up. That's one real positive
-- making sure that the data is secured. Obviously, when it comes to DR, we could quickly
recover an environment. So that's a great thing for IT. And I think that, in general, the end-users
would love that as well, as they get into this world more often.

Gardner: Looking a little bit to the future, more organizations are adopting software-as-a-
service (SaaS) applications for non-core business type applications. We're seeing more interest in
cloud, consuming applications from a public cloud environment or the hybrid environment,
whether it's public or private. Is there something about your support of applications as
centralized to multiple devices that will enable you to exploit SaaS, cloud and hybrid services to
a greater extent?

Fawcett: Most definitely. It goes back to the tools that you're using to assess, manage, and
govern and then support the end-users. IT has to make sure they have those tools in order to
make sure they're supporting the end-users regardless of where their data lives.

Certainly, the cloud and the SaaS environments are adding extra buzz in the industry. We're very
interested in how to capitalize on that. How do we make sure that we're looking at elastic
computing, and where can it benefit us? Everybody is scrambling to understand this new
technology trend better and how it can help an IT organization.

But it does go back to the tools that an IT organization has in order to match those three things
that we should always be doing, which is assessing what the users and the environment need,
managing it, making sure it's secure, and then making sure again that we're able to support those
end-users to their fullest and the way they expect to be supported.

Gardner: My thinking just a couple of years ago was that BYOD was going to be the exception,
not the rule. You would support some sort of a fringe category or two of your workers with this
capability, perhaps those out on the road, more often than not.

But now, as I hear you, it sounds that the direction that most IT is going to go in, hybrid services,
delivering and consumption and management, and a more centralized control over data, IP, and
management of apps and delivering desktops themselves as services, are all going to be making
BYOD, or at least the blocking and tackling that you would need to do anyway, something that
comes together in such a way that this might become more the norm than the exception. Do you
think that’s what’s happening?

Fawcett: Absolutely. It's like when virtualization was first there. There was a wave of “how
much could you virtualize inside your data center?” Fast forward, and now it's a given. It's a
given that inside your data center you have virtualized as much as possible, so that you can
ensure that your data center is being used the most it can be and the most efficiently.

The way it's going to be

This is the same way this is going to be. Just talk to your kids. Try to find a child walking down
the street and isn't texting or who doesn't have a tablet and can probably manage it better than
their parents.

I'm not talking about just young children but generations to come. I'm talking about the kids who
are coming in now, in their 20s and 30s. it's a given that they want to use whatever device they
choose in the corporate world, just like they do at home. It's a right. It's no longer considered a
luxury.

From that view, it will be up with the internal IT teams to ensure they have the access to
everything they need, with the right security in place to protect them, as well as protect the
company. That's why when you think about some of the tools that we've been using here, you
really want to make sure you bring in some of those tools, so that you can, in fact, assess,
manage and support the end-users to the best of their ability, for not only the end-user, but also
for the company.

Gardner: To that point about tools, I assume that you all drink your own champagne.

Fawcett: Absolutely.

Gardner: Was there anything in particular in the Quest Software portfolio that you think gave
you an on-ramp, perhaps a better return on investment (ROI) and even overall better control and
management, as you move towards this BYOD, support of many panes of glass, centralized IT
management direction?

Fawcett: Absolutely. Yes, we are drinking the champagne, and it all goes back to the beginning,
where you asked me, how I knew how much BYOD was actually in our environment? That's
where we started using one of the first phenomenal tools that we have, which is called
MessageStats. This is a great tool that reaches out and helps us track the trending within the
organization at a macro and micro level. We know which devices and OS versions are being
used, by whom, and at what time.

In fact, I asked my team just recently, when we first started talking, "Can you pull a list on all the
devices that I use, that are registered to me?" So I saw my own list of the devices and I was
shocked to see how they actually are tracked, right down to the level of when was the first time I
ever connected the device to the network, last successful sync, last policy update, what kind of
device was it.

It was so granular, and quite frankly, it was so very Big Brother-like, it kind of scared me. But
again, you can't make a solution for what you don't understand. So assessing with MessageStats
is the only way to go.

Then once we understood it, we said, "Now that the process is moving, let's figure out what type
of device is right for what type of user." And this is where we turned to vWorkspace, which
enabled us to determine which of the users and scenarios are best suited for the virtual desktops
in the data center.

In addition, it provided a critical insight as to which virtual desktop technologies provide the best
fit for each user, based on their needs. So vWorkspace allows us to not only put a desktop in the
data center, but it lets us do things like application streaming and publishing. It really enables us
to have that broad spectrum of functionality with just that one tool.

Once we were up and running, we stepped into the management and governance aspect of the
project. This can probably be one of the most problematic areas, when you think about the pure
nature of BYOD. Multiple devices for a given user, each acting very differently, and if not
managed, could destroy any governance policy put in place.

Understanding the individual

This is where we truly must raise the issue up from the device to the individual, understanding
that role of that person and understanding what security rights, regardless of the device they need
to have in place. And this is where Quest’s One Identity Management came into play.

It gave the IT team the ability to rely on one point of control for an individual and all their
devices. This is the product we count on to pass the audits, and most importantly, to ensure that
our employees have that right level of access needed to get their job done.

The final key point on this is that it takes IT out of the mix and automates that very cumbersome
process of provisioning, moving employees amongst departments, and then finally de-
provisioning, when that employee leaves.

This is a very powerful product that makes it so that in our environment, once an employee is
entered into the HR system, through automation, it automatically provisions them, gives them the
rights to applications, sets them up inside of those applications -- all without IT involved in that
process. So no more passing help-desk tickets.

One other piece that I wanted to touch on is a product called Webthority that we have been using,
not only for our internal users, but also during the M&A process. This is a great product, because
it provides a portal for the employees to come into. Once again, it's secured via that same
network log-on that they use when they walk in the door in the morning.

This is anywhere, any device. It's simply a portal. They come in, they use their network log on,
and bam, they're shown all the applications that they have visibility into and access to. They can
go in, without having to log on again, almost like a single sign-on effect, which allows them to
access the applications via two-factor authentication as well. It's a great product that helps out in
many ways.

And then that final aspect of an environment is, of course, the support and monitoring.
Remember, the key to any IT success is through the happiness and satisfaction of the customers.
We recognize that supporting and monitoring their experience and performance is most
important, especially when you talk about VDI, which is what you and I have been talking so
much about.

Our job is to ensure that the end-users are getting the same type of performance that they would
on a standalone PC or if their desktop was in the data center. Because without that consistently
great performance, your end-users will fight giving up their desktops every time.

For this, we turned to monitoring that user experience with Foglight for Virtual Desktops. Being
able to quickly determine which users are impacted by performance problems helps us to
proactively take action for those users, before the users feel the pain.

Understanding the trends in the virtual environment -- how many people are connecting at any
given time, what applications are they using, etc. -- helps us determine when we might need to
add additional servers to that server farm, and to meet the load. Or we can even look at a desktop
or an end-user and say, "You know what? I don't think these folks should be virtualized at all.
Perhaps they should go back to being physical" -- for whatever reason.

Empirical data

You can't correct what you don't know and you need that empirical data to make an educated
move. Foglight gives us that data, ensuring we are consistently improving the environment for
the end-users. It's a great set of products that touch on all three phases of an environment or a
team that's trying to solve this BYOD issue.

Gardner: It really strikes me too that this isn't really about devices, but it's about the data center,
the tools, the management, the governance, all of which are probably things that are good IT best
practices anyway. It almost sounds as if BYOD is forcing discipline, governance, automation;
some of the basics of good, advanced and modern IT. Is that sort of what you are seeing, is
BYOD a catalyst to better data-center management?

Fawcett: It can definitely be used that way, because it does all go back to how an individual in a
given role gets access to the applications they need to get their job done. It shouldn't matter
which device they are using. It's all about which application access they should have to get their
job done.

Gardner: Of course when you put in the best practices, when you have the backups and you
have the scheduling and the automation, this all will end up being an economic benefit as well,
because you won't suffer terrible outages, you won't have issues of discovery for data when you
need it and how you need it.

Of course, you can start to look at your total cost for your data center and tweak and manage for
energy facilities, capacity and utilization. It sounds as if not only is BYOD a catalyst for better
data center practices, but it could be some significant means of reducing your total cost of
operation.

Fawcett: Absolutely. We've always looked at containing IT budgets as a means to an end. When
you sit back and think about it, the only way to do that is through simplification, standardization
and automation.

If you don't have that last piece, that automation piece, and you're simply throwing heads to
solve an issue, your IT expenses are going to go through the roof. And you're going to have
unhappy customers in the end, because processes are going to be overcomplicated. It's all about
containing the IT budget through best practices and automation.

Gardner: Well, great. I'm afraid we are about out of time. You've been listening to a sponsored
BriefingsDirect podcast discussion on users’ personal use, ownership and even maintenance of
their own computing and mobile devices, and how that's actually making more sense, for more
organizations, for more reasons.

We have seen how this has benefits far beyond just the users’ sense of empowerment; we're
seeing that there are benefits to IT advancements along the lines of centralized application
support, data support, VDI implementations, better DR, data protection and even more.

Thank you so much. We've been talking about how BYOD impacts organizations, in particular
Quest Software, a Dell company, and we have been learning this from Carol Fawcett. She is the
CIO at Dell Software. Thanks so much.

Fawcett: Thank you.

Gardner: This is Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. Thanks also to you,
our audience, for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this, and we hope you come back next time.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Sponsor: Quest Software

Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how Quest, a Dell company, leverages VDI and
BYOD to improve application support, backup, and disaster recovery. Copyright Interarbor
Solutions, LLC, 2005-2012. All rights reserved.

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