How Can Endpoint Management Simplify IT Operations?

Hello readers! Picture yourself in charge of the IT department for 500 laptops, 200 mobile phones, and many other tablets and remotely connected devices. Every single device requires constant software upgrades, security updates, device configurations, and troubleshooting.

Without some type of management and centralization, performing all these tasks takes a lot of time.

Here comes endpoint management, which helps to get rid of such problems by allowing the IT team to centrally discover, configure, manage, protect, and troubleshoot devices without doing everything manually.

Endpoint management becomes especially important due to modern workplaces that involve working from home, bring-your-own-device policy, cloud services, and mobile devices.

In this blog today, I will shed light on endpoint management system can help your business to simplify and organize IT operations. 

Definition of Endpoint Management

Endpoint management is defined as the set of policies and procedures that IT staff can use to manage and control various devices connected to the organization's network.

These endpoints could be laptops, desktops, smartphones, tablets, IoT devices, POS, etc. Through endpoint management, an organization can control access to the devices, create security policies, and manage those devices centrally.

An endpoint management solution will offer a centralized console through which administrators can manage their devices.

For instance, if an organization finds out about any software vulnerabilities, then the IT department can find out all the affected devices and deploy updates for them through the endpoint management console instead of making people update their devices on their own.

In fact, the centralized way of handling devices becomes crucial if an organization is handling hundreds or thousands of endpoints.

What Makes IT Operations Complex?

Today, there are no two identical office computers in the IT environment.

People might be working with Windows notebooks, Macs, Android phones, iPhones, and tablets. They could work at their homes, at offices, at branches, or at customers' sites.

The IT personnel need to control applications, OS, permissions, security parameters, and updates for all these devices.

This results in a scaling issue. It takes five minutes to perform a task on one PC, but it will take hours to repeat it on hundreds of devices.

This is the point where endpoint management helps with the implementation of automation and standardization.

How Does Endpoint Management Simplify IT Operations?

Offers You a Central View of the Devices

One of the main problems IT faces is getting insight into all the devices that are connected.

With an endpoint management solution, you can manage devices, users, operating systems, apps, configuration, and compliance from a single pane of glass. That way, you won’t need to open different solutions to get a view into the state of your endpoint environment.

Decreases Manual Setup of Devices

Setup of devices for new users may include app installation, security policy application, configuration of services, and authorization.

Many of these processes can be automated by means of endpoint management through enrollment and provisioning process flows. IT can use a common configuration for several devices rather than set them up individually.

Simplifies Patch Management

Patches are necessary for any company, but their manual management on hundreds of devices is time-consuming.

To update all the computers, it is necessary to locate those devices that require updates, schedule them, and confirm their deployment. With endpoint management, it becomes easier to deal with OS and application patches using one platform.

For instance, in case there is a flaw found in a particular application, it becomes easy for an administrator to find out the devices that use that application and install the patch for it without looking into each computer separately.

Facilitates Remote Troubleshooting

In many cases, the employees require technical assistance while being out of the office. Otherwise, it will be necessary either to tell them what actions to undertake or to visit their place physically.

However, with the help of endpoint management, administrators can control all of the actions on the device remotely, check the issue, and solve it.

It Standardizes Device Configurations

Configuration drift may lead to increased complexity in the management of IT infrastructure. Although two individuals may begin with identical laptops, there is a risk of their devices becoming different due to software installations, configuration changes, and updates.

The use of endpoint management helps the IT department standardize the devices’ configuration and implement it uniformly across all endpoints.

For instance, the company can centralize its approach to the enforcement of screen lock policies, allowed software, Wi-Fi connections, and security policies instead of leaving it up to the employees.

It Enhances Endpoint Security Management

Endpoint management and endpoint security may go hand-in-hand, as endpoint management controls the devices and their configuration while endpoint security is about protecting them from various dangers. To have a better understanding of modern cyber defence, you can check out this guide on AI in cybersecurity. 

IT specialists can use endpoint management solutions to enforce the installation of security software, security policies, as well as limit access for devices not meeting the necessary security criteria.

This will serve as the basis for managed endpoint security.

Unified Endpoint Management

The management of laptops, smartphones, and tablets using distinct platforms adds more complexity.

Unified endpoint management, or UEM, integrates various forms of endpoints into a single endpoint management process. UEM is an IT solution that manages various aspects such as devices, applications, configurations, and security policy from a unified system.

This provides the organization with a way of maintaining consistent policies for a diverse range of devices.

Endpoint Management and Access Control

Controlling device endpoints is not the only duty of an IT team. They must also manage access control and what users can do once they have gained access.

Endpoint Privilege Management

Endpoint privilege management involves controlling elevated privileges on the endpoint device.

Businesses can simply opt for the least privilege strategy, giving their employees access only to execute work-related tasks and activities instead of providing complete administrator-level access. 

For example, when an employee needs administrator-level access to install certain software applications, instead of providing him/her with access, the IT department can limit his/her administrative privileges and provide access for necessary tasks.

This strategy also perfectly aligns with the security principle discussed in Principles, Benefits & Implementation of Zero Trust Security. 

How Does It Improve IT Security?

Through Consistency

It becomes more difficult to manage security when devices operate under differing policies.

A centralized approach to endpoint management enables companies to have more consistent implementation of security policies on devices. The company can determine requirements such as the version of the operating system used, the security software installed, encryption, application access, etc.

In case a device turns out to be non-compliant with these policies, actions can be taken. Certain platforms enable automation of the process by running scripts or locking the device in case of non-compliance with certain criteria.

Organizations can also effectively explore a complete security standpoint through a properly structured posture. In this round, the discussion on cybersecurity maturity will be useful for you. 

Better Management of Remote and BYOD (Bring Your Own Devices)

There are more risks of security breaches in remote work and BYOD environments because employees may access corporate resources using external networks or their own devices.

Remote work also comes with some security risks. This is why it would be useful and beneficial for your business to have a proper cybersecurity assessment. 

By using endpoint management, organizations can determine their access policies regarding these cases. The organization can specify what types of devices are allowed to access certain resources and what security requirements must be met.

What IT Teams Tend to Overlook About Endpoint Management?

Security is the focus of endpoint management. Yet this is not the only reason why endpoint management is important.

Manual labor takes away precious time. The more time IT staff devote to installing updates, configuration issues, and troubleshooting problems with devices, the less time they will have to work on other important initiatives.

Endpoint management could help change this situation in the direction of centralized management and automation.

Furthermore, endpoint management might contribute to a better user experience. Management and security measures that disturb users constantly might cause them to circumvent these procedures.

This is why endpoint management has to be designed with all three elements in mind – security, control, and usability.

What Can Go Wrong without Endpoint Management?

There is no need for a company to have thousands of endpoints to experience difficulties related to endpoint management.

A smaller company may experience inconsistent software versions, outdated applications, orphaned devices, too many administrator rights, and inefficient troubleshooting as well.

The larger the organization is, the more difficult it is to address such issues. The IT department can deal with 20 laptops manually; however, dealing with 200 or 2,000 endpoints manually will cause serious trouble.

Scalability thus becomes one of the issues that you should never forget to consider. 

Conclusion

So, what is the use of endpoint management to improve IT processes?

These include visibility of devices, configuration of devices, patching, remote assistance, security policies, and access control.

This can help IT specialists avoid doing routine tasks and troubleshooting problems; for users, this means better-working devices and less time they have to wait for repairs; for specialists responsible for security, this can lead to consistency of controls in the endpoint environment.

The main benefit here is the change of viewpoint regarding endpoints as an integrated environment and not the problem for IT to deal with at the level of each particular device.

Automation of routine tasks will enable scalability of IT process management.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Q1. How do IT professionals benefit from endpoint management?

They can utilize endpoint management to organize and simplify IT operations in the best way possible.

Q2. Is endpoint security the same as endpoint management?

No, as the purpose of endpoint management is to manage and control the endpoints and not protect them, as that comes under endpoint security.

Q3. How would you describe unified endpoint management?

It allows IT professionals to manage and control different endpoints, which include mobile devices and computers as well.

Q4. Why is it important to manage the endpoints?

This ensures that the organization limits administrative access, thus reducing the risk of excessive privileges for users.