iPass Device Management services and software help customers manage and protect their remote and mobile devices. Advanced technologies streamline the management of Internet-connected devices that reside beyond the corporate firewall, while allowing efficient management of LAN-attached systems. This mobile systems management solution is available as an iPass-hosted service or as an enterprise software solution deployed on the customer's network.
Device Management Architecture
The iPass platform for device management includes agent software that resides on the device and servers that are used for administration, policy management and software distribution.
Functional Modules. The system components deliver two core functional models for system assessment and remediation. System Manager is the assessment portion of the service, which is used to manage machine hardware and software inventories. Patch Manager uses the best-in-class Microsoft patch management capabilities of Shavlik Technologies to automate the assessment and remediation of out-of-compliant systems.
Agent. The agent resides on the user device, performing endpoint assessment, uploading data to the Command Servers, fetching policies and installing the appropriate update packages. It runs silently as a service at system startup and continually looks for Internet connectivity. Upon sensing connectivity, the agent searches for updates at intervals determined by the IT manager.
Unlike other solutions, iPass Device Management constantly adjusts the allocated bandwidth to deliver the quickest download available that does not impact the user's application performance. To do this, it employs dynamic bandwidth throttling technology that measures activity on the client (both connection bandwidth and CPU utilization), the server and the corporate network.
In most cases, assessments, downloads and installations of patches or software occur in the background without any user interaction.
Servers (when integrated with the Lockdown agent):
Primary Command Servers communicate with endpoint clients and direct the agents to the Command Server.
Command Servers communicate device status to the management console. They also receive requests from the distributed agents, verify policies and direct the clients to appropriate packages for automated download.
Relay Servers (Device Management—Enterprise only) are geographically dispersed servers that allow users to download packages from nearby machines.
Management Console. This interface lets IT staff control each module, client and server component. Customers use the management console to track endpoint inventory, manage patches, deploy software, create and deploy packages and access reports.
