What is a Mobile Device Management (MDM)?

Mobile device management (MDM) is a program that enables IT, administrators, to track, secure and implement mobile, tablet and other endpoints policies. MDM is a core component of enterprise mobility management (EMM), which also includes mobile application management, identity and access management, and the sync and share of enterprise files. MDM aims to optimize the functionality and security of mobile devices within the business while protecting the corporate network at the same time. Modern business mobile products not only support smartphones but even laptops, Windows and macOS computers and even certain applications on the internet of things (IoT). The use of MDM for managing PCs is known as Unified Endpoint Management (UEM). UEM is generally regarded as MDM’s successor and aims at handling all enterprise apps with one console. How mobile device management works Mobile device management relies on endpoint applications called an MDM agent and an MDM server that resides either on-site or in the cloud in a data center. IT administrators configure policies through the management console of the MDM server, and the server then moves those policies over the air to the device’s MDM agent. By interacting with application programming interfaces (APIs) built directly into the device operating system, the agent applies the policies to the device. Similarly, IT administrators can deploy applications over the MDM server to managed devices. Mobile device management features Mobile operating system developers and mobile device manufacturers monitor what MDM apps can and can’t do on their devices through their APIs. As a result, the management of mobile devices has become a commodity, with most vendors providing a similar set of core capacities. Differentiation of MDM vendors comes from the convergence of mobile device management systems with other enterprise applications. Features are: Application blacklisting/whitelisting Remote service management Alerts for users trying to bypass restrictions with jailbreaking Device inventory and tracking App distribution and an enterprise app store Password enforcement App whitelisting and blacklisting Data encryption enforcement