Today’s Mobile Computing Environment

What Is the Cloud?

When someone in the IT field references “the cloud” they are usually referring to cloud
computing. Cloud computing is the use of computing resources that are delivered as a service
over a network. A great example of cloud computing is an email service such as Yahoo! Mail or
Gmail. You probably know someone who has his or her personal email account with one of these
companies. In this example, Yahoo! and Google are supplying an email service for users. These
users don’t work for either of these companies and have no idea where the email servers that host
their mailbox are located, nor does it matter.

Flickr (www.flickr.com) is another example of a cloud service. Flickr offers storage within its
datacenter so that users can upload their photos and store them remotely. You might be asking
yourself, “Why would people store their personal photos with some other company’s server?
Why wouldn’t they just keep them on their own devices?” There are several benefits to storing
your photos in the cloud. First, it provides a way of backing up all of the photos that are stored
on your own computer so if that computer crashes your photos aren’t lost. Or, maybe you are at
your mom’s house and she wants to see the pictures you took of your recent vacation. If your
pictures are stored only on your PC or laptop at home, you are out of luck, but if they are in the
cloud you can simply use her computer to access the flickr.com website and access your photos.
It’s also a great way to share your photos with friends and family. Years ago the only way to
send a photo to someone’s computer was to email it to them as an attachment. The problem with
this delivery method was that your photos weren’t guaranteed to arrive in the receiver’s inbox,
because oftentimes the size of the photo attachments exceeded the size quota of the receiver’s
inbox. In addition, sometimes photos were stripped out of an email by the receiver’s anti-spam
service. By using Flickr or a similar photo storage service in the cloud, you can simply send
people a link that they can click on to see only the photos that you want them to see.

There are four types of cloud computing services.

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This is when a cloud provider supplies the network and
server hardware to host the operating system and applications for the client. Essentially, the
client pays a monthly fee to access the hardware and is responsible for all software
management and maintenance.
• Platform as a Service (PaaS): This is when the cloud provider supplies the server and the
operating system to host the client’s applications. Clients pay a monthly fee to have a fully
functional server host their applications and are only responsible for the applications that
they install.
• Software as a Service (SaaS): This is when the cloud provider provides the applications as
well (as in the example of Yahoo! mail). Here the client isn’t responsible for anything and
 simply pays a monthly fee to access the application. A great example of SaaS is
www.salesforce.com.
• Network as a Service (NaaS): This is when the cloud provider supplies additional
networking features such as bandwidth on demand. Clients pay for the services they use each
month. The NaaS model isn’t as prevalent as the other three.
Cloud computing is popular for a number of reasons. Moving to cloud computing can reduce the
cost of managing and maintaining IT systems. Hardware has to be constantly upgraded because
users and the applications they use demand an ever-growing amount of resources. This makes it
very expensive for an organization to its own servers, and managing them is a major
undertaking. A company’s energy consumption costs may also be reduced. Large data centers
are expensive to keep cool due to the extreme heat that today’s servers generate. Many
organizations also want to be greener and are trying to find ways to use less power. Most
important, today’s Internet is fast and dependable, and is able to support cloud computing.

Cloud computing is transforming the way organizations use, store, and share data, applications,
and workloads. It has also introduced a host of new security threats and challenges. With so
much data going into the cloud—and into public cloud services in particular—these resources
become natural targets for hackers.

For more on cloud computing, click here.

Working Remotely

Gone are the days when everyone came into the office for eight hours and worked at a permanent
desk with a stationary personal computer. Although the majority of employees do report to an
office every day, an ever-increasing number of people don’t. Many of them work from home
while others are mobile workers always on the go. These types of workers are sometimes
referred to as virtual workers. There is even a growing movement in which people work for more
than one employer, piecing together a full-time workload made up of numerous part-time virtual
jobs.

Today’s organizations require a way for remote or virtual workers to access the resources they
need to do their job. Sometimes users need access to the PC they have in their office. Others may
have an assigned virtual PC hosted in the employer’s data center that they can access remotely.
One way to do this is with Remote Desktop, which is a standard feature found in all Windows
client operating systems since XP.

For more information on working remotely, click here.

Remote Desktop
This feature, called Remote Desktop Connection, runs something called RDP, or Remote
Desktop Protocol. All Windows client and server operating systems today have a remote
capability that can be enabled in order to allow users to access resources from a remote location.
The first step in doing this is to enable the remote feature on the target computer. You access
these remote settings within the System Properties.

When you click “Remote Settings” within System Properties, an additional window opens up
like the one above to the right. By default, an operating system has remote connections disabled,
as this is certainly a security risk and should only be enabled if it will be utilized. The third
selection under the Remote Desktop heading enforces the highest security level. If this setting is
enabled, however, users using an XP machine will not be allowed to remote in. You must then
specify which users have permission to remote in, as, by default, no user is allowed to unless he
or she is specifically given that right.

Once the remote host is enabled, a user can access the host by using the Remote Desktop
Connection feature on his or her own computer.

RDP requires a logon authentication just like any user logging on locally. Once logged on, RDP
presents the user with a desktop that looks just like it would if the user were sitting in front of the
machine itself. Once the user is remoted in, the mouse and keyboard he or she is using control
the target machine. Users can then access any application or file that resides on the remote host.

For more information on RDP, click here.

A variety of third-party remote desktop alternatives are available as well. These are especially
handy for instances when you are on a non-Windows device such as an iPad or an Android
device. One of the more popular ones is www.gotomypc.com.
These types of remote web services require that a small client application be installed on the
remote host. Users can then simply pull up the gotomypc.com website from any computing
device that has a web browser or the installed GoToMyPC app. You must have an account with
GoToMyPC, and it is that account that authenticates you into the remote desktop.

VPN

VPN stands for virtual private network. VPN establishes an encrypted tunnel connection
between the computer the user currently resides at and the remote site. A VPN connection
requires that the organization have a VPN server. Clients that wish to utilize it must then create a
VPN connection on their computer that will link up with the server. You can do this in the
“Network and Sharing Center” within the Windows 7 operating system.
A VPN connection is different from a remote desktop connection. On a remote desktop
connection, all of the tasks are performed on the remote desktop and all of the data is accessed
from it. Nothing is sent over the Internet other than the mouse clicks and keyboard actions
implemented on the computer the user resides at. With a VPN connection, the computer that
contains the VPN connection is actually connected to the organization’s network, as if it were
wired to it like any other computer in the building. Your computer is assigned a local IP address
just like all of the other local computers. Whether a computer is local or remote, it needs an IP
address common to the network in order for there to be connectivity between the computer and
the network. Because of this, transactions take place at the VPN client computer and data is
accessed from it remotely. This means that data is traversing the Internet.

The reason it is called a virtual private network is because it actually creates a “tunnel” through
the Internet that encrypts and protects the transmitted data to keep it from being captured or
sniffed. A VPN connection allows the client to create a secure connection with the central office
from any location that has Internet access.

Unlike a Remote Desktop Connection, VPN doesn’t access a remote desktop at all. The user’s
desktop doesn’t change at all once the VPN connection has been made. What users can do is
browse the remote network as if they were sitting at a computer within the site of the network.
This allows them to browse network shares and access folders, remote into other machines
within the local network, or even print to the local printer. What’s more, the computing device
they are using to establish the VPN connection is actually a part of the remote network. This
means they can copy and paste files between their computer and a remote computer. This differs
from remote desktop, which doesn’t allow interaction between the remote machine and the local
machine.

For instance, let’s pretend that you need to place some files on a remote server that are currently
located on your laptop. If you used RDP to remote into the server, the only way you could place
those files onto the server would be to email the files to yourself through webmail and then pull
them down from webmail on the server. You could also upload them to a cloud drive and then
download them to the server. The point here is that there has to be an intermediate step in order
to get the files from the laptop to the server. Now, with VPN you can simply copy the files from
your laptop, browse to a shared folder on the server, and paste them in.

In short, if a user wants to operate a remote computer and have access to its desktop and
applications, he or she needs to use a remote desktop to do so. If a user needs to access files and
resources hosted by a remote site and interact with them through his or her local computer, then
VPN is required.

Click here for additional information on VPN.

If you want more clarification on the difference between RDP and VPN, click here.

Desktop Sharing

Desktop-sharing technologies are available that allow users to share their desktop with a remote
user. Unlike RDP and VPN, this is a shared connection between the host user and the remote
user. Both users can see what the other is doing on the desktop.

One of the purposes of desktop sharing is to host a meeting with remote users. The host of the
meeting may be showing a PowerPoint presentation or demonstrating some software. A popular
desktop sharing website is GoToMeeting.

You can learn more about GoToMeeting at www.gotomeeting.com.

Another purpose of desktop sharing is to allow IT technicians to remote into a machine to fix a
problem that the user is experiencing on his or her machine. A popular site for this type of
desktop sharing is TeamViewer, which you can access at www.teamviewer.com.

When you download TeamViewer, your install of the application is assigned an ID and a
password. To allow remote users to access your machine remotely, the remote user must know
the ID number and password. TeamViewer will then pull up the remote computer’s desktop in a
web browser. Both users share the same screen and can see what each other is doing.

The screenshot below shows the TeamViewer startup screen. The ID and password on the left is
your assigned ID and password. You input the ID of the remote computer you wish to access into
the Partner ID box. You will then be prompted for the password.

Desktop or Mobile Device

PC sales continue to decline as tablet sales increase exponentially. There are so many devices
today that it can be confusing to determine which device is the right one for you. Consider the
following devices:

• PC: The PC is the tried-and-true device that computer users have enjoyed for decades. In
today’s mobile world that integrates with the cloud, a stationary computer device makes
less and less sense. PCs are ideal for users who require a lot of resources such as
memory, processing power, or storage. Users that demand a lot of resources include
gamers, video production professionals, and architects and engineers who use the
software AutoCAD. One nice thing about a PC is that unless you buy a budget model, it
is fairly easy to upgrade its components, such as installing a faster video card, etc. If you
don’t need a lot of resources, you probably don’t need a desktop in this day and age.
• Laptop: A laptop is basically a portable PC. Laptops nearly always run the Windows
operating system, just like a PC, and can host any software that runs on Windows.
Laptops come in a variety of sizes, which is great for people who like a large display.
Laptops are ideally suited for a mobile work environment. If you want a portable device
that can run Microsoft Office, manage a VPN connection, and store your data on a local
device, a laptop is probably your best bet.
• Tablet: Tablets and laptops are not the same. Tablets are primarily app driven, which
means that they can’t run the software that you already own for your PC or laptop. They
take their primary input from their touchscreens and are pretty much just a consumer-
driven device, although enterprise-ready tablets are beginning to appear on the market. A
tablet is primarily a media-driven device, designed to deliver Internet, music, videos, and
game apps. They typically don’t have extensive local storage capability, but this is less of
a concern today with the growing popularity of cloud storage. If you need a second
computing device for the road or you only need a computer to access the Internet for
basic functions, a tablet may be ideal.
• Netbook: These types of devices were popular a few years ago, but their popularity is
waning fast with the birth of the tablet. They were designed to be a mini-laptop, but users
have overwhelmingly preferred a touchscreen for this size of computing device.
Netbooks have the worst features of the tablet and laptop rolled into one with few of the
advantages of those device types. Netbooks are definitely on the way out.
• Smartphone: It is truly amazing how much can be done on a smartphone today. Like the
tablet, these devices are app driven. Though one could use a smartphone as a primary
computing device for basic Internet, media, and communication functions, these devices
are primarily supplemental computer devices.
Below are the iPad, iPad Mini, and iPhone 5.
The iPad is a very popular tablet today. Although it is a great consumer computing device, it is
very mediocre from an enterprise point of view. The iPad accommodates only a single user. This
is a very important consideration. That means that only one user can check his or her email, store
web favorites, and manage his or her desktop. Contrast this with the Windows operating system
in which multiple users can log on to a computer and check their email and access their personal
files. As you will see in Lesson 8, you need to make sure that you can manage the updates for all
of your computing devices on the network, and this is very difficult with the iPad. You also can’t
join an iPad to an iPad.

Below is the Microsoft Surface with Windows 8/10.

There are two versions of Microsoft Surface, RT and Pro. There are some key differences
between the two:

• The RT version is a lot less expensive.

• The Pro version can join a domain; the RT version is a stand-alone device.
• The Pro version can run the full version of Microsoft Office as well as traditional custom
applications, while the RT version can only run apps.
• The Pro version has much better security than the RT version, which is basically a
consumer device.
For more information on the Surface, click here.

Mobile Device Operating Systems

As mentioned in the previous section, laptops tend to use some type of Windows operating
system, such as Windows 7 or Windows 8/10. When it comes to tablets and smartphones,
however, there are a variety of choices. Best-selling tablet as of this writing is the Apple iPad,
which runs an operating system called IOS. Android is a popular third-party tablet operating
system that is produced by manufacturers such as Dell and Samsung. Windows 8/10 is found on
more robust tablets that are designed for enterprise networks. As noted above, Microsoft has its
own tablet out called Surface that runs an operating system called RT. Like its competitors, it is
app-driven and cannot run standard Windows applications such as Microsoft Office.
Smartphones basically run the same similar operating systems as tablets. However, Blackberry,
runs a proprietary operating system called Blackberry OS.

Cloud Storage

Up until a few years ago, home-based consumer users saved all of their files to some sort of local
storage. Most of the time, this was the hard drive of their computer. When they needed to take
their files with them, they used thumb drives or USB drives that they could connect to any
computer via a USB port. Most USB drives are limited to 2 GB to 16 GB. Some users also
utilized external USB drives. These devices actually contain a hard drive within them and
connect through the USB connection. Most of the time, they are used for storing music or video
libraries or for backups.

Today, more and more users are utilizing cloud storage. Cloud storage is data storage that is
offered by a company such as Microsoft or Google. Usually a defined amount of free storage is
offered to users with the ability to purchase more space on a weekly or monthly basis.

Cloud storage is becoming extremely popular for several reasons.

• Thanks to wireless, the cloud is ubiquitous and can be accessed from nearly everywhere.
You may have left your USB thumb drive at home, but the cloud is always there.
• Internet bandwidth is extremely fast, with download speeds of at least 5 MB in most
places. Accessing cloud storage is almost as fast as accessing a network drive.
• We have so many devices today that it is a burden to ensure that the files we need
regularly are located on every single device we own. Files in the cloud can be accessed
by multiple devices at any time.
• Cloud storage vendors regularly backup your files so that you don’t have to worry about
backups.

Two of the more popular cloud storage alternatives are Dropbox and Microsoft’s OneDrive.
You can access your storage with these firms through the web or via a local client. To access
them on the web, simply pull up a browser and go to either http://dropbox.com or
https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/.

You must have an account with the cloud storage service, which is how you are authenticated to
access your files. Cloud storage offers more than just the mere storage of files. It also allows you
to share files with other users by sharing designated directories. This way you can just send
someone the URL of the shared cloud directory without sending bulky attachments in email.
Within Dropbox, you can right-click on any file and see the following context menu:
Notice the option called “Previous versions.” Both Dropbox and OneDrive store multiple
versions of every file. For instance, let’s say you have a Word document stored there. You
decide to edit the document and resave it. Even though the new version is saved, a copy of the
original document is saved as well. At any time, you can restore the original version and have it
be the primary file. This is great for when multiple users are sharing the same files and multiple
edits can be occurring. Both of these services also keep all of your deleted files so that if you or
someone else accidently deletes a file, it can be restored with the simple click of a mouse.

You can also download the Dropbox or OneDrive clients and install them on any or all of your
computing devices. When installed on a Windows 7 or Windows 8 machine, they integrate
directly with Windows Explorer.

Let’s pretend that you are part of a virtual work team. Your team consists of members located
around the world. All of you share the same Dropbox or SkyDrive and have the client installed
on your computers. The client creates a folder named after its application name such as Dropbox
or SkyDrive. This folder is located within the user’s profile. For instance, to locate my SkyDrive
files, I go to C:\Users\Brad\SkyDrive on my local machine. When one team member saves a new
file to his or her SkyDrive, the file is automatically replicated to all of the other team members’
computers. When one team member edits a file within his or her Dropbox and saves it, the
changes to the file replicate to all of the other members as well. This is also a great way to ensure
that all of your devices have the same files. When you save a file to your PC at home, the next
time you boot up your tablet, the file will appear there as well.

There is also another huge advantage to cloud storage. What if you save all of your files in the
traditional way to your local hard drive on your laptop and your laptop crashes? All of your files
are gone. This isn’t the case with cloud storage, however. Should your hard drive crash on your
laptop, simply buy a new hard drive or laptop, install the Dropbox or OneDrive client again, and
all of your files will be automatically downloaded.

Both Google and Amazon offer cloud storage plans as well. Amazon not only allots a set amount
of free storage, but it also allows users to store an unlimited amount of media files purchased
from Amazon that don’t count toward the free storage limit.

As mentioned, you can buy more storage with any of these services for a fee. Usually you can
get 100 GB of storage for $100 a year. There are also pricing plans for small start-up companies
as well.

Believe it or not, local storage is becoming a thing of the past. The portability and benefits of
cloud storage are making the concept of local storage obsolete.

For more information on Dropbox, click here.

Microsoft Lync and Skype for Business

Cloud storage is a great way for users who are spread out across the country or even the globe to
share files in order to work together. In order to work cohesively, it is critical for team members
who may be scattered geographically to be able to communicate with one another in ways other
than just email. One product that allows this to happen is Microsoft Lync. Lync requires that an
organization either host its own Lync server or have Microsoft host it in the cloud. Each user
then installs a Lync client on his or her computer.

Below is a screenshot of the Lync 2013 client application:

Through the Lync client, you can communicate with other users by instant message, video
conferencing, Lync meeting, or telephony. With Lync, every user can be in a separate isolated
geographic location and stay in real-time communication with his or her team members. Even
large enterprise corporate networks utilize Lync. One of the great features of Lync is the ability
to determine someone’s presence. Users can manually declare if they are available, away, or
busy. Even if users don’t do this manually, Lync will automatically detect their active presence
and report it to other users. Organizations have found that the number of voicemails drop
considerably after Lync is introduced because if someone sees that you aren’t present at your
desk through Lync, there is no reason to call you at your station.

Lync allows you to instant message other users either one to one or in a multicast to a group of
users. Lync allows you to host a video conference utilizing the webcams of everyone attending
the virtual meeting. It also has a desktop-sharing capability so that someone can host a meeting
and conduct presentations. Users can also conduct peer-to-peer phone conversations using a
headset plugged into their computers. You can also integrate Lync with your phone system as
well. Lync also integrates with Microsoft Outlook, which we will discuss in the next lesson.
Outlook is an email client application.

Lync makes all of this type of communication easy. To contact someone through Lync, simply
search for his or her username within the Lync client and, if his or her presence shows him or her
as available, simply right-click on his or her username and select any of the following choices.
Click here for more information on Microsoft Lync.

Microsoft Lync is now Skype for Business. It operates very similar to Lync. You can use it for
instant messaging, audio calls, and video chat. You can also use it to share your desktop. For
more information on Skype for Business, click here.

Wireless Networking

Wireless connectivity is everywhere today. You can hop on the Internet at your favorite coffee
shop, at the hotel you’re staying at, or even at the local McDonald’s. Some towns even offer free
wireless in downtown areas. We have become a wired world.

A common misconception is that wireless networks are less secure than standard wired networks.
This is completely untrue. In fact, a wireless network can be more secure than a wired network.

For instance, some hotels offer both an Ethernet wire connection option as well as a wireless
option to access the Internet. When a hotel guest connects the Ethernet cable to his or her
computing device, he or she is instantly joined to the hotel network infrastructure. Although this
connection doesn’t guarantee him or her the ability to access the Internet, he or she has
established a level of connectivity to the network. In contrast, to access and establish a wireless
connection, the user must know the key to type in. Without the key, the user can’t access the
network.
What’s more, the data traffic that traverses a wired network is very seldom encrypted, while the
majority of today’s wireless networks encrypt all traffic. Wireless, in fact, is far more secure than
your average wired Ethernet network.

If you are trying to access a wireless connection on your laptop or tablet, the first thing you need
to do is to find the available Service Set Identifiers, or SSIDs, being broadcast in the immediate
area. An SSID represents a wireless connection. If you are using a Windows operating system
such as Windows 7 on your computer, there is a wireless icon in the notifications area on the
taskbar.

Simply click this icon and you can see all of the available SSIDs.

As you can see in the screenshot above, this computing device is connected to a Verizon SSID.
Three other SSIDs also are available. The green bars show how strong the wireless signal is. All
of the wireless connections available in the screenshot are secure. If any of them were open
connections, meaning no encryption, there would be a yellow shield indicating this.
There are several types of secure wireless connections:

• Wi-Fi Protect Access (WPA): WPA encrypts information. It not only requires you to set
up a network key, it also checks to make sure that the network security key has not been
modified. WPA also authenticates users to help ensure that only authorized people can
access the network.

• WPA2: WPA2 is more secure than WPA, but it will not work with some older network
adapters.

• Wired Equivalent Protection: WEP is an older network security method that is still
available to support older devices, but it is no longer recommended. When you enable
WEP, you set up a network security key, which, like WPA, does encrypt the information
that one computer sends but its security is relatively easy to crack. WEP should no longer
be used at all.

• 802.1X: 802.1X authentication can help enhance security for both wireless and wired
networks. It uses an authentication server to validate users and provide network access.
Often, a computer certificate is used to help authenticate the computer itself as well. This
type of authentication is typically used when connecting to a workplace network.
SSIDs are presented by access points. An access point, or AP, is a device that delivers the SSID
wireless connection. An AP can deliver more than one SSID connection. An AP can either be
configured individually or a large number of them can be managed by a wireless controller. In
this case, the wireless administrator creates the settings for the SSID and the wireless controller
delivers it to all of the APs. Most home-based networks have an all-inclusive device that serves
as a router, access point, switch, and firewall. Large enterprise networks such as a corporation or
hospital utilize dedicated access points.

The first picture below is an example of a wireless AP that is typical of home usage. The second
picture shows an enterprise AP.
A typical home-based wireless router model today is an all-around device. It serves as a router
between the home LAN and the ISP, routing the traffic between the computers within your LAN
and the Internet. The router serves as the default gateway for the home in that all nonlocal
traffic is routed to the wireless router. It also serves as an access point, allowing users to create
one or even multiple SSIDs to serve their wireless devices. It also serves as a local DHCP server,
allocating IP addresses to the local devices within the home. Some models have a basic web
filtering system so that parents can lock their kids out of certain websites. More advanced models
have basic firewalls that will close all but the most common ports in order to protect the home
network from the Internet.

Not all SSIDs are broadcast. In this case, a computer must know about the existence of the SSID
in order to connect to it. This sounds like a secure way to hide wireless connections from the
public, but it really isn’t. If you would like to find out how many wireless connections there truly
are in your area, you can download an application called NetStumbler on your wireless
computer. It will then find all SSID signals, whether broadcasted or not. Applications such as
NetStumbler are often used to find rogue access points within organizations. A rogue access
point simply means that someone is using an AP that is unauthorized, such as the case of an
employee who plugs in his own AP into a network drop in order to access the network wirelessly
from his or her own device. NetStumbler is a great way to find all available wireless in the area
you are in if you need to connect to wireless.

Click here for more information on NetStumbler.

Activities

1. Sign up for an account with Dropbox and OneDrive. Note that you will need an email
account to sign up for these. If you are not comfortable sharing your primary email, you
can create an alternate email for Dropbox, or create an alternate email at Outlook.com
that will naturally coincide with OneDrive. Note that both of these services are free.
Once you create an account with each service, see which one you prefer. Be sure to
download the client application for each service on your primary computer. If you have
multiple computing devices, install the clients on all of them and see how all of your
devices will replicate your files.
2. Download TeamViewer on a computer of someone that you can remote to. Coordinate a
remote session with him or her utilizing TeamViewer.
3. Download NetStumbler onto your laptop or table computer. Travel to some commercially
concentrated areas with your NetStumbler device and see how many wireless SSIDs you
can discover.