Mobile devices have become an important way for users to access internal corporate websites and applications. AWS recognizes this and the need to keep such connections secure. Therefore, they have introduced Amazon WorkLink.

This new service provides users with access to their company’s internal websites and applications, straight from a mobile device. You don’t have to change or migrate any content to do so.

Features:

  • Easy to use — Amazon WorkLink is fully managed by AWS. Setting it up and running it is simple. Once you have created a fleet, you can use an email template in WorkLink to invite users to join. Once accepted, users only need to install the WorkLink app and sign in with their corporate credentials.
  • Affordable — you pay only for what you use.
  • Full control of domains – WorkLink also lets users get full control over domains they can access from a mobile device. You may associate domains with every WorkLink fleet you generate. You can associate contact.company.com for users to connect to the company contact list. If you happen to have a SAML Identity Provider, you can use that to manage your user base.
  • Compatible with various setups — To establish a connection with your corporate assets, Amazon WorkLink uses a VPC. These assets may exist within the VPC, or in another that is linked to it, or on-site. As an additional requirement for on-site resources, you must have an IPsec tunnel, AWS Direct Connect, or AWS Transit Gateway to access them. For applications on a VPC, they may enable AWS PrivateLink to connect to AWS services while maintaining their traffic on AWS.
  • Seamless content – When a mobile user connects to a domain associated with their fleet, the content they request is fetched, rendered, and sent to their device as a vector using a TLS connection. The user then sees it in their mobile browser. They may do the usual functions of scrolling, typing, and even zooming in.
  • Secure – all corporate content is rendered in the AWS cloud. Data is delivered through a secure connection. Any HTML, CSS, and Javascript content is rendered in the AWS cloud using isolated EC2 instances. Content is not stored in browsers of mobile devices. The WorkLink app encrypts any copies of cookies stored on the user device, never to be decrypted on the device itself.

AWS WorkLink is now available for use. Just take note of the following:

  1. Support is currently for iOS12 with Android 6+ up soon.
  2. WorkLink can process and render a wide array of web content, though video and audio are still in the works. Note that Flash Silverlight, WebGL, and applets are not supported.
  3. Currently, WorkLink is available only for North America and Europe AWS regions, with the other regions to be available later in the year.
  4. As for the price, each month you are charged $5 per user with an active browser session.

You may download and connect your enterprise to AWS WorkLink today!

Marco Kuendig

Marco Kuendig

Marco is a managing partner at copebit. He got seven AWS certifications. He has spent three years in Australia and has worked with AWS and DevOps technologies for the last 6 years.