Mobile Devices: Server and Management
Lesson 06
Device Management (DM)
• Many types of devices in a mobile network
• Managed by a mobile service provider • DM means configuring at initialisation
(bootstrapping), monitoring current
configuration, processing maintenance requests, and taking care of location and handover of each device
Device Management in pervasive
computing environment
• Means managing the infrastructure of a large number of networks at the same time
• Each device can have applications
downloaded from different sources in an enterprise
• The service provider has to manage and serve the applications
Device Management
• Each device may subscribe to different types of services for different durations • For example, a device may subscribe to
specific gaming applications for a month • The account and authentication of each
Device Management
• Managed invisibly without system administrator
• Self-administered • Device boots up
Device Manager
• Initiates accesses
• Establishes and terminates the connections
• Makes secure connections on its own without using a network administration software when connecting to a network
Device manager
• Runs through a setup phase
• Exchanges packages to get the allocated network and system access addresses
• Each device in a mobile computing system interacts with the other
• Features of healing and self-configuring network
Tivoli Device Support Infrastructure
(DSI)
• IBM software
• Used for ATMs, handheld devices, set-top boxes, and cable modems
• A Device Gateway has a device
management agent to connect devices at one end with the gateway at other end
Tivoli DSI Device Gateway
• The Gateway includes Tivoli Management Gateway
• Connects to device management server of the service provider
DSI device manager
• Assigns a unique ID to a device
• Also local ID to the device which is
supported by the support infrastructure. • Unique ID remains fixed
• Assigned once
• Local ID can be reassigned when the device moves from one personal area network to another
DSI device manager
• Saves Device information
• When a number of devices are of identical types, for example, Smart
Phones type, then a group object can be used by assigning the same type of
devices to a group
• The object then manages large number of devices of same type
IBM Tivoli device support
infrastructure architecture
Profiles
• Profiles provide a specification for the
use of software such as Device manager or Device management server
• Device management requires profiles for the user, device, and network
Mobile information device profile (MIDP)
• Provides a specification for the mobile devices such as mobile phone to enable the use of Java microedition
User profile
• Consists of user password and ID
• A user can also add PIM data, individual preferences, and security credentials to the profile
• Facilitates Device management by system access to user profile
Device profile
• Device profile includes a unique ID, local ID, individual preferences, and available resources
Network profile
• Accessed by Device manager
• Network profile specifies the current location address of the device and
networked devices and the description of the network services
Information provided by profiles
• Includes specification of groups, services, names, and objects
• A profile may give descriptions of the types of the devices which can group and be managed concurrently
• A profile may give descriptions of the
services at the devices in the network. A profile may include the names (services and object names)
Directory
• An efficient way of storing and accessing data
• Has a tree-like structure with entries at the tree-leaves and nodes representing the
printers, documents, persons,
organizational units, groups of persons, or anything else which may represent a given entry or multiple entries at the tree
Directory Service
• A service means a software or protocol for specifications and provisions for a set of operations with the given objects or
entries
• Directory service means a service
protocol which specifies and provisions for the set of operations with the given objects or entries in a directory
A child object or leaf object
• Each one Identified by a URI (universal resource identifier) in a function (method) • For example, assume that A is root object
and it has child objects B1, B2, and B3. B1 has children C1 and C2 and assume that C1 is a leaf object.
URI
• Specifies the hierarchy position of a node under consideration with respect to the
root
• Used when referring to an object in a function or method.
Relative URI
• Means specification relative to a present node not necessarily from the root
• An object accessed by its Name and attributes
• Name is referred to as DN (distinguished name) for the object
LDAP (lightweight directory access
protocol)
• An open source networking protocol for accessing, modifying, and querying
TCP/IP directory services
• Its current version is LDAPv3
• Lightweight means that the protocol does not depend on OS and system resources
LDAP (lightweight directory access
protocol)
• Accessing, querying, or modifying an object in LDAP can involve a tree of
directory entries, each of which consists of a set of named attributes with values
• Some attributes are mandatory and some optional
LDAP Basic Operations
• Most services use LDAP as a simple starting point for their database
organization
• bind, start TLS (transport layer security)
protocol, add entry, delete an entry, modify DN, abandon to abort an earlier request,
Bind
• An operation (function or method) to link an accessing object with the acccessed object
• Without successful bind operation, the directory entries (objects) cannot be accessed, modified, or queried
OMA DM (Open Mobile Alliance
Device Management)
• OMA DM objects most used standard in mobile device computing system
• DM defines a description framework and has hierarchical structure in which there is a management object tree
DM
• Based on SyncML Data Synchronization (SyncML DS) specifications
• In a hierarchical structure for the
management objects, the OMA DM
protocol (standard) provides for specifying how many times (how many children of a parent) an object node can occur in the hierarchy
Examples
• ClientUserName (user name of client which server recognizes) and clientPW (password using which server
authenticates a client before providing the service) specified in OMA DM as having zero or one occurrences
Example
• Parent node of a management object for data synchronization is DSAcc (data
synchronization account) (one or more occurrences)
• The child objects (nodes) and leaves
(objects for DSAcc) of the parent object DSAcc with specifications for their
occurrences and functions (methods) required for their accessibility
Summary
• Device management
• Configuring at initialisation (bootstrapping)
• Monitoring current configuration • Processing maintenance requests
• Taking care of location and handover of each device
… Summary
• Profiles of user, device and networks required for device management
• Directory service • LDAP
End of Lesson 06 Device Management
