What’s New in 2012 R2: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Protecting Corporate Information

Microsoft continues to evolve the products that are part of our Cloud OS vision.  Microsoft Corporate Vice President Brad Anderson recently started a blog series to provide you keen insight into the strategy and direction.  Today Brad blogged, “What’s New in 2012 R2: Making Device Users Productive and Protecting Corporate Information”.

In this post, Brad discusses the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend, and how Microsoft is supporting the myriad of devices users have and want to use for work or play. People-centric IT (PCIT) is about helping people to work on the devices they choose. We’re providing users access to their apps and data on any of their devices in any location. The challenge this presents to IT teams is considerable: As soon as users are working on a device that IT does not manage (or even have any knowledge of), it becomes very difficult to retain control of sensitive corporate information and to be able to respond to situations such as the device being sold, lost, or stolen.

One important data point for us when we planned People-centric IT was the feedback we gathered from customers about the need to help reduce client management infrastructure costs and complexity. To do this, we worked hard to integrate Configuration Manager and Windows Intune. Our vision was for IT teams to use the Configuration Manager Administrator console to “manage devices where they live,” on-premise desktops and laptops can be serviced through existing on-prem infrastructure, and Internet-connected devices can be serviced through cloud infrastructure.

Sound interesting?  Head on over to Brad’s blog post and get the full information on this important topic. To learn even more about the technical topics discussed today, check out these posts from our engineering teams:

• Compliance Settings and Company Resource Access in Configuration Manager
  This post outlines how System Center Configuration Manager and Windows Intune allows an administrator to provide VPN, WiFi profiles, and Certificates to permit users to connect to company resources.
• Protecting Corporate Data on Mobile Devices by using Configuration Manager and Windows Intune
  This is an overview of how System Center Configuration Manager and Windows Intune provide the ability for the administrator or user to protect corporate data on mobile devices by leveraging retire and wipe functionality.
• User experience with Unified Device Management using System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager and Windows Intune
  This post examines how System Center Configuration Manager and Windows Intune provide the user with a consistent enrollment and resource access experience across devices.
• Simplified, User-centric Application Management across Devices with System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager and Windows Intune
  In this post, the team looks at how System Center Configuration Manager and Windows Intune allow administrators to extend application delivery to all major device types while still centrally managing application delivery across devices from a single console.
• Extending device support in Active Directory
  An analysis of Active Directory in Windows Server 2012 R2 and its capabilities to enable People Centric IT
• Enabling Modern Work Styles using Windows Server 2012 R2 Remote Desktop Services
  An overview of the improvements made to Microsoft VDI (Remote Desktop Services) reducing storage related costs, improving the end user experience, and administration improvements to both session and VM based VDI.
• Introducing Work Folders on Windows Server 2012 R2
  Work Folders enables IT administrators to provide Information Workers the ability to sync their work data on all their devices wherever they are while remaining in compliance with company policies. This is done by syncing user data from devices to on-premise file servers.