Securing mobile devices is critical to enabling government employees to work anywhere remotely. Understanding use cases and remote work challenges is key in establishing technical requirements.
CDW Government works with agencies to gather data on the average workday and select the appropriate devices — whether that means iOS, Android smartphones or tablets, or Windows laptops — while ensuring application software platforms have a mobile front end. We currently provision devices in accordance with agency requirements so that they are fully configured and ready to use immediately upon arrival. After provisioning, we perform kitting, logistics, and device lifecycle management and ship devices directly to agencies and even directly to end users.
Many federal employees work remotely, often necessitated by their roles in disaster response or national security, and they still need access to government data, networks and applications via their devices. For these reasons, CDW Government’s top priority when working with agencies is enablement — alongside establishing a secure remote ecosystem. These goals involve a constellation of remote tools including mobile device management (MDM), security solutions, trusted networks and end-user awareness.
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Satellite Connectivity Enables New Use Cases
When it comes to connectivity, industry has introduced several game changers in recent years.
One area of advancement many agencies are already taking advantage of is low-cost, high-performance satellite broadband. Thanks to Starlink’s satellite internet offerings, federal employees can work out of pop-up field offices, mobile command centers or other remote sites — farms, boats, disaster recovery zones, off-grid — knowing that they can leverage high-speed, reliable connectivity at a reasonable price point.
Another innovation area has been supplemental coverage from space (SCS), also known as direct to cell (DTC). This allows Starlink and other low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite operators to have satellites broadcast on cellular bands, effectively functioning as cell towers in space. By leveraging existing cellular bands, current mobile devices will be able to connect to satellite-based cellular service whenever terrestrial services are unavailable or degraded such as a disaster-recovery scenario.
This effectively means that cellular coverage maps will be a thing of the past, superseded by satellite coverage maps. Basically, anywhere a mobile user has line of sight to the sky, they’ll have a cell signal and will be able to roam onto satellite seamlessly and transparently. Currently, this is available for texting and messaging with near-term plans for voice, data and video services.
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Device as a Service (DaaS) Covers the Extensive Testing Agencies Need
Device as a Service offerings allow agencies to leverage secure mobile devices at an efficient and scalable cost model while CDW Government handles the heavy back-end lifting, from break-fix MDM and app management to security configurations and data. That includes authentication and secure access mechanisms such as device-based or per-app VPNs.
Often understated is the extensive amount of testing required to ensure devices remain secure and effective for end users once all of their desired apps and configuration settings are added. Mobile operating system fragmentation and frequent updates require continuous testing against federal applications and use case requirements to minimize operational impact. Testing is especially crucial for specialized user roles and groups.
Only a few years ago, federal employees generally had two devices: one for access to government data and apps and one for personal use. Many agencies are now allowing employees to configure their work devices for personal use, or vice versa, which increases complexity for device management, security and records retention. CDW Government can come in with a comprehensive approach to addressing the growing complexity of device management, as well as optimizing device lifecycle strategy to reduce the total cost of ownership.
Indeed, there’s a human capital strategy and talent management aspect to device provisioning as well. Agencies face a growing number of artificial intelligence-enabled cyberthreats, require disaster recovery plans and are seeing an ongoing wave of retirements, all of which require them to draw their existing talent to realize economies of scale and device efficiencies.
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Network Traffic Flow and Other Device Challenges
Securing devices has become more complex because they’re not always traversing the agency’s network but still need to be monitored and managed by internal security teams. This asymmetric traffic flow is hard to see in real time and requires pushing as much security as possible out to the devices themselves or to an edge component.
Whether or not all traffic will traverse a vendor’s network, devices will have some form of MDM client or agent on them to enforce the agency’s security policies, and devices can’t be locked down to the point where the security renders it unusable.
CDW Government works with agencies to address this hurdle and others such as asset management, lost devices and telecom expenses — all while keeping pace with rapid changes to devices, form factors and platforms.
