Prior to Oreo’s release, Cisco Meraki Systems Manager teams had already tested dozens of possible variations of customer use cases with Android Oreo. This includes updates that can be utilized by customers using G Suite Education and Business–also known as Android for Work. Systems Manager is certified for all the Android EMM protocols and is ready to go with Android Oreo. See below for a few example use cases:
Enable Work Profile on employee-owned BYOD devices to isolate personal and work apps and data
Place education, payment, or healthcare devices into single use mode or Kiosk mode (COSU)
Enjoy all the necessary control with Android Device Owner mode for corporate-owned devices
Android Oreo also brings many device advantages and improvements including better battery life, picture-in-picture, and increased stability for apps. See below for a list of some of the new functionality with Android 8.0:
System optimizations around better app stability
Background limits including battery and memory optimizations
Picture-in-picture for multitasking on Android
Notification dots for streamlined access of activity and notifications
Autofill framework to simplify new device setup and password synchronization
A complementary Android Vitals dashboards containing exciting new visibility for developers
During the months prior to launching Meraki MV, our extensive user experience testing for the new product spanned everything from the layout on the dashboard to physical installation of the security cameras. In doing so, we realized just how difficult it is to stand at the top of a tall ladder while holding a laptop (often the unfortunate reality of IP camera setup). That’s why we’re excited to announce that the Meraki mobile app for iOS and Android now supports MV security cameras.
The Meraki app makes it easier and quicker than ever to set up your cameras. View live video feeds and adjust focus, zoom, and aperture, all from a smartphone. Simply download the Meraki dashboard app on your phone, login with your standard dashboard credentials, and then navigate to your cameras in the left-hand navigation menu. Click on the camera you want to view, and then click “Live” in the lower right hand corner. The live video feed will automatically start to stream, and, if needed, you can make any necessary camera adjustments. For video walls and enhanced video monitoring functionality, MV also works with mobile browsers in Android.
Kiss the days of climbing onto a ladder with a laptop goodbye, and say hello to security camera configuration and management from your phone! Whether onsite or halfway around the world, the mobile app will help to keep tabs on what’s important to you and your organization.
As always, our engineers are keeping their ears open for requests through our Make a Wish tool. It’s hard to believe MV just launched a couple of months ago, and MV engineers have already added full disk encryption and support for the mobile app since then. Just imagine what could be coming next!
Managing cellular data plans can difficult and expensive. The cost of exceeding data plans and the lack of visibility into managed devices’ cellular usage has made it challenging to have company cellular policies, let alone maintain them. Meraki Systems Manager has provided tools to manage and increase the visibility of mobile devices, as well as the likes of desktops and servers, since 2010. Today, we are happy to announce yet another big step in the evolution of Cisco’s mobility management with the addition of cellular data management.
Systems Manager customers have cellular data management functionality now, and they have it for no extra charge. It was made automatically available–like all updates to Dashboard. At Meraki, there is a lot of pride around offering the best tools possible while maintaining a rapid feature trajectory that redefines the industry’s status quo.
Practically, cellular data management enables the ability to do three important things;
Track data usage on managed devices globally and individually
Automatically take action on devices going over data limits
Generate reports
Firstly, to view tracked data usage over all managed devices, simply navigate to Monitor > Clients and click the ‘+’ button in the top right hand corner, then add ‘Cellular data’ to the table. Next, enter a plan reset date on the Configure > General page–the default is the first of the month. This will specify when the monthly counter should restart and will allow for easier data usage tracking over time and on-the-fly. Current data usage can also be tracked individually on a specific device’s client page as shown below. The first selector allows for a quick view to show data for the past day, week, month, or 3 months. The second selector toggles between different policies and thresholds.
Secondly, single or multiple data caps can be set using policies in Systems Manager by navigating to the Configure > Policies page. Check the box for ‘Device cellular data usage’ and enter the amount for the maximum data allowance in MBs. Policies can be used to manage, monitor, and create reports for many different actions. Below is an example policy which is configured to track a cellular data usage limit of 10GBs*.
Security policies in Systems Manager become even more powerful when used to automatically take action on devices. Changing the scope of devices with tagging provides the ability to control profiles or add and remove apps based on security posture. If a device exceeds a data limit or violates security compliance, Systems Manager can be configured to automatically lock it into single app mode, disable settings, or even remove company data, access, and apps. To get more information on tagging in Meraki Systems Manager, check out the documentation article here.
Last but certainly not least, all good security policies should be accompanied by a report. Systems Manager makes is easy to enable daily, weekly, or monthly reports for any of the security policies created. Along with this is the option to select which kind of devices are important to each policy and whether or not only failing devices should be included.
Systems Manager legacy customers interested in these powerful features can find out how to take advantage of them here.
The Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) arena is an exciting technology field with rapid innovation across a wide breadth of platforms. On February 9th we announced the launch of a host of new Systems Manager (SM) features and functionality for these platforms, and as part of this release SM now supports Android for Work.
This provides a major boost to the manageability of Android devices as it makes it much simpler for employees to use their own device for work. It does this without ceding the user’s control of their personal device, while allowing the organization to ensure appropriate security.
An example of one of the areas where functionality has been significantly extended over existing Android controls, is in the area of restrictions. There are now three new categories of Android restrictions available in SM, in addition to the previously available ones. Keyguard restrictions help secure an Android device when it is locked. Although you may be confident your data’s security when the device is locked, information could still leak out without the correct keyguard settings, for example a notification that displays the content of an SMS even when the device is locked. With keyguard restrictions you can now disable any or all of the following items:
Notifications
Unredacted notifications
Fingerprint access
Camera
Trust agents
All keyguard features
In addition to keyguard controls, an administrator can now also apply restrictions to other system areas. One brilliant addition is the ability to prevent users from installing applications from unknown sources. With the prevalence of malware and other dangerous apps in the Android ecosystems, allowing users to turn off this safety net is often not desirable. This control lets the administrator decide. The complete list of system restrictions we are announcing in this launch is:
Prevent Android Debug Bridge (ADB) access
Prevent installation of apps from unknown sources
Prevent uninstalling of apps
Prevent app control
Enforce application verification
Disable SMS
Disable keyguard
Disable screen capture
Disable volume adjustment
Disable factory reset
Along with the new restrictions, there is now containerization with separate Google Play stores for personal and work apps. This allows separate instances of identical applications to be isolated within the appropriate personal or work container. For example you can have two instances of Gmail with one configured for personal use and the other configured for IMAP access to a corporate mail server.
Administrators can now be confident in the knowledge that corporate data can be erased with the removal of the work app from a device, and users will be reassured that their personal data won’t be affected. A complete wipe of the work profile removes all the contained applications and data meaning off boarding employee devices is straightforward and secure.
Android for Work and the other new features included as part of this launch are available today. If you are a Systems Manager Legacy customer interested in these new capabilities, then you will need to upgrade to the full version. This includes a wealth of features on top of those mentioned in this post, with further information available on the Systems Manager licensing page.
More information can be found on our documentation portal, with upcoming Systems Manager webinars highlighting these features. Alternatively contact us to begin a no risk trial and we will help get you up and running.
