A Beginner’s Guide to Unified Endpoint Management

It’s no secret that businesses across the globe are seeing massive increases in the number of devices being used to establish access to their networks and corporate data. For managed services providers (MSPs), this influx of devices presents a potential challenge, as each of these devices function as an endpoint, thereby introducing a new element of risk for an organization. The exponential rise of endpoints in working environments has made robust endpoint management more important than ever.

Unfortunately, many devices used to connect to corporate networks are not compliant with MSP security requirements and standards. Unified endpoint management (UEM) offers a potential solution to this problem. This guide will define unified endpoint management and discuss why it’s a critical element of successful MSP security—especially in this day and age.

The key UEM terms to know

Before explaining the benefits of UEM solutions for MSPs, let’s break down some of the key terms associated with unified endpoint management:

ENDPOINTS

An endpoint, as its name suggests, is simply any device that acts as the last point (or end point) on a network. This could be a desktop, a mobile phone, a laptop, a tablet, or a mobile device. Other device types like scanners, printers, wearables, projectors, and so on all also constitute endpoints.

ENDPOINT MANAGEMENT

Endpoint management refers to the systems or processes involved with controlling, supporting, provisioning, and securing the endpoints in a business or organization. Endpoint management is a crucial part of any successful IT security strategy.

UNIFIED ENDPOINT MANAGEMENT (UEM)

Unified endpoint management refers to an integrated approach to managing, controlling, and securing devices. This can include mobile devices, laptops, desktops, tablets, and any other relevant endpoint devices. UEM solutions allow you to manage these endpoints from a centralized, unified platform, streamlining the endpoint management process and improving efficiency.

Unified endpoint management is a term that has evolved from mobile device management (MDM) and enterprise mobility management (EMM). UEM serves as a more comprehensive alternative to just MDM or EMM, incorporating the management of all endpoints—whether mobile or stationary—into a single management console.

The benefits of unified endpoint management

As mentioned above, UEM’s integrated approach can streamline endpoint management efforts for MSPs and significantly increase technician efficiency. To go into more detail, here are some of the main advantages of using a UEM solution:

SINGLE-PANE MOBILE DEVICE MANAGEMENT

One of the most notable benefits of using UEM tools is that they unify your endpoint management and mobility management tools into a single-pane solution. This can dramatically reduce the costs associated with IT management by minimizing the number of tools necessary to manage devices. By unifying your endpoint management and mobility management strategy, UEM solutions can also simplify and improve the overall efficiency of your device management and security operations. With a single-pane UEM tool, MSPs can monitor and deliver security mandates to every single device on your company’s infrastructure—all from one central location.

IMPROVED SECURITY

UEM solutions allow your company to manage security across all devices, instead of managing mobile device security and desktop security separately. This is especially useful for large organizations with hundreds of employees (and potentially thousands of devices), as it spares you the overwhelming task of managing security for such a vast number of endpoints using separate solutions (and lot of back-and-forth between the two). When leveraging UEM solutions, you can manage devices across multiple systems under a single console, establishing consistency and reducing the amount of maintenance required of your IT team.

THREAT DETECTION

Every endpoint in a modern business environment poses a security risk and could potentially be vulnerable to attack. As such, it’s crucial MSPs make use of a security solution that is able to monitor every single device for threats. The solution you choose should also be able to alert your IT team to any suspicious activity or problems.

Many UEM solutions are equipped with threat detection capabilities, enabling you to scan endpoints in your enterprise for malware and security breaches. UEM solutions with mitigation functionalities can also take remedial action when a threat is discovered, saving you time and resources that would be otherwise spent on threat monitoring and response activities.

Unified endpoint management with N‑sight RMM

It’s crucial to pick a solution that meets the needs of your MSP. N‑sight RMM is a software solution designed specifically for MSP remote monitoring and management, which also includes UEM capabilities. RMM offers a range of features to help you manage and monitor customers’ environments and endpoints.

The robust endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities included in RMM help MSPs get ahead and stay on top of potential threats. This solution allows you to create custom policies for managing endpoint agents, and it conducts continuous file analysis to detect threats in near real time. EDR, available in N‑sight RMM, uses behavioral artificial intelligence engines to power data point analysis activities to help protect you and your customers against zero-day attacks, ransomware, and other evolving threats. The solution can even take automatic action when threats are detected, performing roll backs on threats found in Windows environments, and sending instant alerts to keep you in the loop.

Manually enforcing security standards and policies across even a small number of devices can be a challenge for MSPs—which is why it’s important for MSPs to leverage UEM solutions that help them manage and monitor endpoints in a unified and coherent way. All-in-one software like N‑sight RMM can streamline and automate endpoint management processes, saving you time and resources while improving the efficiency of your services.

With the security features built into N‑sight RMM combined with automation and customizable monitoring policies and templates, RMM offers a dependable UEM solution for MSPs. A 30-day free trial is available for MSPs interested in trying it out for themselves.

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