Oracle Rolls Out Its MDM Platform

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Oracle has officially entered the booming market for enterprise mobile device management solutions.

The business software heavyweight has announced Oracle Mobile Security, a collection of tools that integrates with the company’s current identity and access control products to help businesses embrace bring your own device (BYOD) initiatives while keeping their data safe. Oracle Mobile Security Suite provides granular sandboxing controls, alleviating fears that sensitive corporate data can leak out via personal Dropbox, Gmail and other consumer-grade apps and cloud services.

A secure mobile workspace segregates the user environment from enterprise apps and data on mobile devices. The tactic not only allows IT to protect corporate data, it maintains a user privacy.

Oracle claims that its focus on MDM takes “an application and user-centric approach” that provides efficient and secure IT management over mobile workforces. It contrasts with the device-centric schemes of some vendors, which create separate security silos and require “expensive integration with identity solutions,” according to the company.

The company’s user-focused strategy is championed by other MDM providers, particularly computer security specialists that have branched out into enterprise mobility solutions. These include Comodo, Trend Micro and Sophos.

Mobile Security Suite supports geo-fencing, allowing businesses to enact location-based restrictions. Administrators can also limit copy, paste and print functions or remotely wipe company apps and data. Other features include Microsoft Active Directory shared-drive support, encrypted data storage, single sign-on, per application network tunneling and curated app catalogs.

Moreover, as a component of the company’s Mobile Platform, it provides Oracle shops with a secure, mobile on-ramp to the company’s business application ecosystem.

In a company white paper (PDF), Oracle explained how its Mobile Platform leverages the Oracle Fusion Middleware infrastructure. A common software foundation, dubbed Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Mobile, enables “developers to build and extend enterprise applications for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android from a single code base leveraging enterprise data and backend services via the cloud, and consuming Oracle Mobile Security services.”

Amit Jasuja, senior vice president of Java and Identity Management at Oracle, said in a statement that the solution “brings the strength of Oracle’s Identity Management platform to mobile devices, and as a result helps organizations address the BYOD challenge with a logical approach.”

Protecting corporate data doesn’t have to come at the cost of what’s driving smartphone and tablet adoption in the enterprise. “By extending security and access capabilities to mobile devices, organizations can protect corporate resources on employee devices without compromising the user experience,” added Jasuja.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Datamation. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.

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