Connecting Your iPhone or iPad with Your Business

The Enterprise Deployment Guide and iPhone Configuration Utility can help businesses deploy passcode policies and configuration profiles via USB or wirelessly. Configuration profiles enable administrators to remotely configure VPN, e-mail, and wireless networking settings, and install certificates and devices restrictions.

Apple has also addressed one of the biggest complaints IT administrators have with iPhones in the enterprise: iTunes. Granted, users will still need iTunes in order to sync or update the iPhone or iPad. But, Apple has provided an ability to customize iTunes to restrict or disable services like the iTunes Music Store, or shared media libraries, and enable IT administrators to control access to software updates.

Old-Fashioned VPN

For road warriors and workers on the go, a VPN is a requirement for secure access to the data and resources on the business network. Particularly when using public Wi-Fi networks which generally don't provide any security, the encrypted tunnel of a VPN is necessary for ensuring the data can not be intercepted or eavesdropped.

The iPhone and iPad have native support for Cisco IPSec, L2TP over IPSec, and PPTP. These three VPN protocols are compatible with the vast majority of VPN solutions and allow the iPhone or iPad to connect with the business network without any additional network configuration or third-party applications.