Modernising Modern Device Management in Emergency Services

In an always-on environment, emergency services workers often don’t have time to keep mobile devices secure and operational. When there is no downtime, how can they continuously update the base image of the device to customise and validate operating systems, applications, drivers, and settings? 

And, whilst rugged devices have improved significantly in their capabilities and performance, many emergency services workers still use traditional methods to ensure devices are delivering an optimum performance.

All Panasonic TOUGHBOOK rugged devices using Windows operating systems are a good example. Traditional deployments and updates rely on offline media deployment, using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) or Microsoft Endpoint Manager, previously known as System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).

This requires each device to be connected to on-premises servers and networks to update, this is unrealistic for mobile device users. After long shifts in the field, devices are either frequently left idle in the station or operations centre until the next period of usage, or they are immediately utilised again by the next team. There simply isn’t time to take them offline.

With sometimes hundreds of devices in use within the largest emergency services fleets, traditional, manual image updates can take significant time, an unwelcome addition to the existing list of administrative jobs that emergency services workers must complete, when in the field and back at base.

However, even the best update plans can go awry on occasion. If this results in devices failing to work properly, emergency services users must ask themselves what the potential cost could be, including first responders who are unable to respond to an incident on time.