Understanding the (True) Cost of Endpoint Management
In this paper, we review the challenges in dealing with complex, ever-changing environments and offer suggestions and recommendations in effective endpoint management. Additionally, we discuss enterprise security as it relates to endpoint management and examine the benefits of integrating endpoint management into your security posture.
IT endpoint management used to be an easier game: Managers deployed user systems with custom images when employees were hired, and employees returned them on their last day at work. Even during deployment, users had minimal abilities to impact systems and devices that were centrally managed. Servers resided in physical data centers where they could be identified and accessed. Those were the days!
Today, endpoint management is anything but predictable and harmonious. Users can bring their own devices into their enterprises and run their own applications. Organizations outsource operations to browser-based third parties, and users often have full administrative privileges over their systems. Servers have also changed drastically, no longer likely to be physical entities located in a data center to which IT administrators have access.
In this survey, we sought to capture the essence of what it takes to manage modern, multiplatform, complex enterprises. IT and security teams have to enable functionality and implement systems that were once considered futuristic dreams—and to do so across multiple countries simultaneously, among a plethora of ever-changing
compliance standards. We also wanted to explore the differences between up-front and hidden costs associated with endpoint management. Lastly, we wanted to understand what security risks enterprises are exposing themselves to today. Endpoint management plays an extremely critical role in efficient operations and enterprise security, and a gap
in one could result in an exposed vulnerability.
To find the true cost of endpoint management, we had to ask some tough questions. Specifically, we wanted answers to the following:
• How complex are IT organizations these days, and what does it take to manage and secure endpoints within these environments?
• Are the costs of modern endpoint management face-value, or are there hidden variables that must be considered, giving us the “true” cost of endpoint management? If so, what are these hidden variables and/or considerations?
• Does the lack of efficient endpoint management within an organization create and/or prolong security risks?
Our respondents, who provided insight from a variety of industries, such as finance, government and telecom, shared the following:
• Organizational size is an extremely important variable, with 61% of our respondents having more than 1,000 user endpoints; 5% of that group has more than 100,000 user endpoints. Larger environments will naturally include
larger obstacles.
• Complexity is significant, with 12% of our respondents having at least 11 operating systems within their environment. Operating system complexity is a huge consideration because enterprises must find compatible management tools.
Enterprise visibility is lacking, with some respondents indicating they do not have insight into the number of endpoints within their environment. Additionally, we found that 33% of our respondents need at least two days to detect security
incidents, and 22% don’t know whether their endpoint systems had fallen into a noncompliant state. Visibility into endpoints and security risks is key to understanding your enterprise’s current security posture and ensuring you are
remaining compliant.
• Patching remains a critical concern; 25% of our respondents need at least one month to patch servers in their environment. This is one of the largest security risks for many organizations, and patching speeds need to improve.
We will cover these findings and more in the sections to come. In this paper, we review the challenges in dealing with complex, ever-changing environments and offer suggestions and recommendations in effective endpoint management. Additionally, we discuss enterprise security as it relates to endpoint management and examine the benefits of integrating endpoint management into your security posture.
