3 reasons why simplification and automation are essential for modern device management

What exactly is Modern Management?

Simply put, Modern Management is Microsoft’s approach to managing Windows 10 users and devices securely in the cloud. Devices that are currently managed through Active Directory, Group Policy and Configuration Manager, are managed through cloud services such as Azure Active Directory, Intune and Windows Store for Business.
In an ideal world, leveraging the cloud should mean that organizations are able to deliver a better digital experience through improved device management with a smaller infrastructure footprint, reducing costs, complexity, time, and effort. It’s something Microsoft has been pushing for some time with Modern Management.
Whilst this has many advantages, there are also gaps. And a key decision factor for many organizations is not wanting to waste their existing investments, but instead to modernize their IT environments. In his recent blog, Simplification and Automation, Anoop C Nair, Microsoft MVP, outlines how organizations can simplify and automate their IT environments to move to a modern enterprise.
Here are 3 reasons why simplifying and automating device management is essential to modernizing organizations.

1. The significance of peer-to-peer technology has increased in the modern workplace

Network content distribution for patch management and software update distribution can have a significant impact on performance, especially for remote workers. Peer-to-peer technologies help to optimize performance through bandwidth management and content sharing. For businesses making the transition to the cloud, their Configuration Manager (CM) environments can now be cloud-attached, allowing more remote devices than ever before to be connected.
CM can be configured so that clients go directly to Microsoft Update to get updates and patches and use a content-enabled Cloud Management Gateway (CMG) for applications and packages rather than going through the VPN to Distribution Points on the corporate network. 1E Nomad supports downloading content from a CMG and Microsoft Update and allows organizations to massively simplify their architecture, Configuration Manager design and remove servers from their environment.
Find out more about delivering an optimized digital employee experience though seamless content distribution.
Or, find out how businesses are using 1E Nomad on their path to Modern Management

2. Endpoints have become more complex to see, manage, and touch

Devices are employees’ main gateway to the workplace and allow them to remain productive anywhere they may be working. Although this may be liberating for employees, it’s proved to be a real struggle for IT. In 2020, organizations stated they typically only had visibility of around 83% of remote endpoints and 87% of office-based endpoints.
Without the right infrastructure that allows IT to see remote endpoints, they’re virtually impossible to manage and therefore impossible to service and support. It can take hours or even days to retrieve information from endpoints, for example, delaying resolution time in the process. Indeed, it’s estimated that employees are disrupted for an average of 52 minutes while waiting for their IT issues to be resolved.
Tachyon Experience gives organizations complete visibility into the end-user digital experience and empowers IT to monitor, measure and proactively remediate end-user experience issues in real-time. It also integrates with ServiceNow for faster issue remediation. What’s more, 1E Guaranteed State can then simplify configuration management by automating standardized configuration at scale, enforcing compliance and ensuring devices are secure in the process.

3. Operationalizing remediation requires an automation-first approach

Servicing remote endpoints is already hard, but is made even more difficult due to legacy endpoint management solutions that struggle with remote endpoints. Remote employees state they are waiting longer to get issues resolved, experiencing more IT issues and plagued by recurring issues.
The challenge has been IT’s dependence on manual remediations, which has two consequences. First, as every user issue is treated as a single problem, the fix implemented is based on the IT person’s level of experience. Secondly, a lack of automation holds service desks back from achieving a higher ticket deflection rate, resulting in dissatisfaction with the IT experience.
The only way to remedy a degrading digital employee experience and limit the burden on IT is through automation. Interestingly, automation is a strategic priority for large organizations post-covid, and as Anoop states ‘is one of the key pillars of the modern workplace’, and yet few IT organizations have operationalised remediation to create scalable and shared real-time automation libraries.
1E’s real-time digital experience management solutions are now consolidated into the 1E Tachyon Platform which is a major step towards simplification and automation. It allows organizations to move towards modern management, automating as many resolutions for common issues as possible and making them available to the end user directly in self-service channels. The result? Reduced operational costs and improved digital employee experience.
You can read Anoop Nair’s full blog, Automation and Simplification, here.