CA Helps Enterprises Get Blackberry Devices under Centralized Control

Self-service and administration tools reduce ownership costs, mitigate compliance and security risks

• By James E. Powell
• 11/05/2007

CA today announced CA Mobile Device Management (CA MDM) for enterprises that need to manage Research in Motion’s popular BlackBerry handheld devices. CA says its product "substantially mitigates the significant security and compliance risks associated with these devices while also reducing total cost of ownership."

CA MDM, an agentless solution, simplifies the provisioning and management of mobile devices using existing over-the-air connections. The product features a configurable self-service portal so end users to quickly register devices, manage passwords, and correct common problems without help-desk intervention. CA MDM also provides a Web-based console that unifies all core management tasks (security management, asset inventory, configuration management, policy compliance, and reporting) for all devices.

Among the key features of CA MDM include are:

• Over-the-air management including device lock/unlock and data erasure to prevent data access on lost and stolen devices

• Automated role-based device security and configuration enforcement and lifecycle management that use Active Directory data

• Automatic device disabling when an employee terminates

• Customizable workflow for approvals, escalations, event management, and support processes

• Quick roll-out of large numbers of devices

CA MDM can further reduce administrative efforts by auto-discovering thousands of devices in just a few hours.

CA says the product can integrate with other CA solutions, including CA Asset Management, CA Identity Manager, and CA Security Command Center. Integration with Active Directory helps administrators handle ongoing synchronization, monitoring, and automated reconfiguration to ensure device configuration and compliance to security policy.

CA Mobile Device Management is available for $65 per device. For further information, visit http://ca.com.