BYO computer at Suncorp

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/aus...in-their-devices/story-e6frgakx-1226029655986

Interesting.

 

You could have posted some of the article...

 

I just activated my Enterprise WiFi that builds on this strategy.

So at first it will be trialled in our secured and controlled WiFi environment then we'll do what Suncorp is doing.

 

I can see this ending badly for their IT Support Department. I myself work as an engineer in IT Support and I cringe at having to fix issues in this kind of a network. You will always get tripped up from time to time by some insidious problem even if you know the software and hardware environment of the user's workstation like the back of your hand.

The article says they are moving to virtualisation which most likely would be a Citrix environment. This would make some things simpler but even if they use a virtualised applications environment, it far from solves the large amount of issues that having such a broad hardware environment can bring. Not to mention the degradation in application performance by having all of your systems running in such an environment unless you dump huge amounts of capital into a very large bank of high end servers to drive this environment for 20,000 users.

Yes costs will be saved but in other areas costs will multiply, mainly in the server infrastructure and support areas. In the end, good luck to Suncorp but I am happy to not be working in their IT department.

 

Love to see how this turns out 1 years time.

 

At work we're allowed to take our own devices, but only if we can manage them ourselves. Works alright, because only tech-heads can be bothered.

I wonder how many man-hours will be wasted by employees trying to get their gear working. I'm glad I don't work in that IT department.

 

Life in Suncorp's IT department could get rather frustrating.

I'm sure there is a huge opportunity for users to take advantage of the system by making a call if there's anything wrong with their personal/local system.

That said, in the user's position I can sympathize with some of the limitations of work systems and the desire to work with gear they might be more comfortable with.

Should be welcomed by technologically competent people who are genuinely more productive on a system to their needs but I wouldn't be surprised if their IT department would be suddenly be required to know the intricacies of hundreds of different set ups.Indeed work may have just gotten more difficult for those providing 1st-2nd level support at Suncorp.

 

In other news, Suncorp announced they will be introducing a fully automated service desk. Callers to the new help line will be greeted by a man with an Irish accent asking if you've tried turning it off then on again.

 

By the sounds of it, they will be allowed to use whatever device they like, and be using a terminal services system , so they still log into a controlled environment. You will find that the IT departments support will stop at the ability to connect to the Terminal Services server. As long as they have access to that, their device would be considered working.

That's my guess anyways.

 

I would agree with Primüs - Suncorp won't be providing any indepth support to those BYO devices. If you can't work, you go home. It might actually make some users appreciate their PC's too. It's an interesting model and one I think we'll see popping up a bit more.


Jetstar did something similar a couple of years back:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/aus...yo-laptop-vision/story-e6frganf-1225769185344

 

I remember jetstar doing it, but never heard how it panned out.

 

One reason im a big believer in BYO hardware to a point. I think let them bring their own mobile devices, they get an allowance depending on their position and can use whatever phone they want.

That was if they want iPhone they can have them and they tend to treat them will alot more respect, also when they drop them its not our problem!

 

So... they're not going to mind a 250L dewar of nitrogen on my desk? Gonna need some more power points for all of these screens as well

Essentially sounds like the same setup you'd have 'dialling in' from home, but at work?

 

Sign of the times.. I do a bit of work on this front, more for home workers.. As long as the terminal at the other end is 'standard' it works a treat.

Talking costs its a massive amount of coin removed, 20,000 desktops dont come cheap, either does the maintenance contract to support them.

 

What about the issue of having company data on personal devices?


Employee gets fired, walks away with his iphone/ipad/laptop full of company data?

 

If they're using Xen/Citrix, then I'm sure they would've locked it down pretty tight. You probably can't fart without a GPO allowing you to.

 

Welcome to the way of the future where you will treat your internal clients as if they were as toxic as the internet. Some schools are creating student networks like this. The two things that I believe are inherently flawed about this model today are;

1. One client can still cause havoc that results in issues for other people - and IT has no control to locate or stop them. Eg How do you find one broken wifi card on someones laptop that's blatting out the frequency? Same for worms, bots etc..

2. Not all business applications are designed to be run on this 'open internet'. What is now stopping Employee A sniffing confidential information from Employee B's, unencrypted, line of business application traffic. How would IT know or stop them if they have no access to the workstation?

 

How is their solution different from allowing a user to remote into their Citrix enviroment from home? It isn't.

I actually think their approach is reducing their risk profile by having moderate control over their users personal machines that they didn't have before.

They can deploy IDS sensors out onto their "untrusted user network" to assist with the sniffing of suspect activity.

I would also make the assumption that this particular network be locked down to access into the citrix enviroment only.

As for key loggers and malware they really aren't changing how they deal with them on a users home pc that is sitting on their desk at home connected to their home internet.

I personally don't see a problem with their approach. Of course we don't have access to the finer details of how they are dealing with the security on their users network but knowing staff in their Security department they would have it rather tightly locked down with lots of feelers in there.

 

Oh how I stirve to get rid of my single 17" 1280x1024 monitor and have something more productive like dual 1920 screens (or 3x, like at home ) but alas, noone here will approve it, since my work isn't deemed important enough for the upgrade.

 

What? How do they now have 'moderate control' over them? And given they were supplying the laptops/desktops prior to this, how is 'moderate control' an improvement?

Uh huh, you just detected mallicious activity from 00:1F-1D-0F-12-1B. Which device and employee does that belong to? Not to mention that sniffing is passive.