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Most companies nowadays depend on computing capabilities for regular daily operations. Whether your employees use desktop computers, laptops, tablets or mobile phones, your company will rely on several devices to allow employees to connect to corporate systems. In some applications relying on all these different devices and systems can become an asset management hassle. This is particularly true on distributed architectures.

How do you differentiate distributed architecture applications? These applications need to collaborate as a complete system while including several facilities or buildings and heterogenous devices. Also, on some of these, the point of access to the corporate systems and software is outside physical facilities or restricted spaces. Some examples of distributed architectures are hospitals, schools, retail stores, supermarkets, warehouses, and fleets.

These applications pose several challenges to asset management, especially in terms of hardware devices. In this blog, we will go over some of these challenges and how to solve them when your company leverages hardware devices with Android. If you want to learn if Android is the best Operating System for you application, read this blog.

Remote Management and Cost Reduction

When a company has several stores geographically spread in several states, it becomes nearly impossible to gather all devices in a centralized IT department to update apps or troubleshoot software problems. Or it becomes costly to have an IT person in each store. To save money, you need to install a DevOps solution on your devices that can help you track, manage, troubleshoot, and monitor all corporate hardware devices. This solution will function as a key for your IT team to monitor and solve issues in real time no matter where the device is. The platform will basically bridge all corporate apps required for daily operations with hardware devices.

Guarantee intended use of the device

In some applications, the company relies on field workers with little supervision on the intended use of the device, like schools or fleets. Installing additional apps for personal use can jeopardize corporate security, among other additional consequences like consumption of device resources. In other applications, like kiosks or point of sale, companies want to make sure to use resources efficiently by exactly sizing hardware and only installing the required apps.

For that reason, you want to make sure all your hardware installed in the field is a dedicated device. Dedicated devices are company owned devices intended for a single use case. You can read more about dedicated devices in this blog post . If your company requires dedicated devices, a DevOps solution can block hardware devices to guarantee intended use. This means that users or employees will only be able to use the installed apps in the device and, it will limit the capabilities to install any unauthorized software.

Ensure data integrity by using the Cloud

Truly leverage the Edge. By correctly sizing hardware and choosing the appropriate Operating System, you can share, store, and check data in the Cloud. By avoid storing all data locally you are better prepared for tackling negative consequences of downtime. A DevOps solution partnered with a Cloud solution will allow you to attain productivity gains because you can process data remotely or locally and quickly store it in a centralized location. This also translates into more precise control of daily operations and being able to gather enough data to take corrective actions across several facilities at the same time.

Customization

In distributed architectures, sometimes users leverage a remote single point of access to corporate systems. You want to use all opportunities to reinforce brand recognition. By partnering software and hardware you can make sure all customization features are built to help grow your brand both among employees and consumers. A DevOps solution and a hardware manufacturer can help you organically add your brand to devices and software.

Support for different hardware devices with the same platform

Since distributed architectures are heterogenous systems, your company will probably deal with having different mobile hardware devices. How do you reduce the hassle? Besides choosing an Operating System like Android, you should find a DevOps platform that can support all those different devices to bridge hardware and software. This will allow your company to tackle all the previously described challenges.

If you want to continue reading about Distributed Architectures, please read this page and if you want to read more about Android DevOps Solutions for dedicated devices, visit www.esper.io.