Are you ready to hear the facts about Google Chromebook unified endpoint management with VMware AirWatch? Between the announcements at VMworld, and the longstanding partnership with Google, it’s likely you’ve heard some buzz about Chromebook management. If you haven’t, here’s the scoop: VMware AirWatch will be the first UEM provider to manage Google Chromebooks. Today’s post explains the facts around the buzz, focusing on the bevy of new features VMware AirWatch Enterprise Mobility Management will support for Chromebooks.
What does Chromebook Unified Endpoint Management Mean?
Good question. In a nutshell, unified endpoint management refers to a single-platform solution for managing endpoint identity and security. Endpoint is a blanket term that refers to mobile devices, laptops, desktops, and IoT. Management refers to the settings and policies an IT administrator configures. The piece that makes this “unified” is the single-platform nature of the solution.
For device security, VMware AirWatch UEM pulls the settings for available solutions into the AirWatch Console using APIs. This aggregates configurations into a single view, eliminating the need to navigate to an admin console for each supported platform. Therefore, the announcement of unified endpoint management for Chromebooks means that managing the Google OS laptop just got a lot simpler.
For adding all apps to the unified catalog and integrating identity for SSO…
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Workspace ONE apps + VDI Console functionality | Consolidate into the Workspace ONE Console |
For configuring granular policies, viewing fleet insights and remotely troubleshooting devices…
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AirWatch Console + Chrome Extension | Level-up with the AirWatch Console + Chrome Enterprise APIs |
To remove the need to use the Chrome Device Management Console…
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Chrome Device Management Console | Use the Chrome Enterprise APIs in AirWatch Console to manage Chromebooks. |
Requirements
To get the unified endpoint management experience, you’ll need to meet some minimum requirements.
- Workspace ONE license
- Chrome Device Management license
- G Suite Identity for Chromebook users
Additionally, you’ll need to sync your G Suite users into the unified endpoint management platform.
New Features
Now that we’ve covered the introductory stuff, here’s the meat and potatoes of the new features that you can leverage with VMware AirWatch Unified Endpoint Management for Google Chromebooks.
Enable Access to Apps and Extensions
- Push Chrome extensions, Chrome apps, and Android apps
- Configure automatic or on-demand application delivery
- Apply a blacklist or whitelist to apps
Configure Network Policies
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Specify how devices connect to the internet by configuring Ethernet, Bluetooth, Cellular, Wi-Fi and VPN policies. Use the data collected from these policies to track and filter activity. |
Specify Power Management Settings
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Configure different policies for devices running on AC power and for devices running on battery. Once configured, end users will not be able to edit these policies on their devices.
Configurable settings include:
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Customize the Browser Experience for Users
• URL- Based Access Policies – Blacklist or whitelist access by defining URLs.
Whichever policy type you choose to configure; be sure to format the URLs correctly: – Provide a URL with a valid hostname, IP address, or an asterisk (*) in place of the host. – Optionally, include the URL prefixes http://, https://, ftp://, or a valid port. • Incognito Mode Policies: Enable or disable the use of Incognito Mode. • Single Sign-On Policies: Enable or disable SAML-based single sign-on. • Managed Bookmark Policies: Create a list of bookmarks that push to Chrome. Create a hierarchical folder structure of bookmarks to group them into relevant folders. |
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Device Access
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Configure Updates Settings
- Chromebook Auto-Update Policies: Enable or disable automatic updates for Chromebooks.
- Specify the target OS version.
- Delay the download of an update for up to 14 days after the it first pushes to the server.
- Configure if the device automatically reboots after an update.
- Chrome OS Policies: Specify the maximum Chrome OS version
The post VMware AirWatch Unified Endpoint Management: Google Chromebook Factsheet appeared first on VMware End-User Computing Blog.