Mobile Data Server

[tedmundson]

Can anyone shed some light on how to use the MDS Serrver in BES 3.5 to push data down to a device? I have found very limited information on the this ......Thanks

Todd

[JimBobJoeRay]

What do you need to know?
Basically it just uses the email system as a transport for the always on data. When any data needs to be pushed either way it uses an email "message" as the shell for the transport of that data. since the email is "always on" both ways, it works in "real time" if you can call wireless actual real time :)

[tedmundson]

How could I use this to either push down corporate news or say a updated telephone list....What do I need on the back end... and how do i get this info to the MDS Server...

[themobileman]

I was told MDS uses HTTP - NOT the e-mail channel. We'll have to see.

MobileMan says that RIM needs to release an improved Java API!!!

[mdeptula]

Could be wrong on this, but MDS uses an HTTP connection to the back office/enterprise server that is housing the data you want to access. MDS grabs the data and routes it through the BES (for 3DES encryption). Between MDS and Handheld is Triple DES. Between MDS and your server, it's straight HTTP (again, could be wrong).

MDS to BES to RIM Relay to Carrier Network, to the device where it's decrypted. (same as email data flow)

My understanding, also, is that you can push out client applications to the handsets over the air as well.

[themobileman]

What you are talking about is Remote Provisioning. This concept is incorporated into the Good OS and Server. After the completion of the lawsuit, RIM will likely incorporate these features into their 2.5G network devices.

Now- here's why it isn't incorporated into the x57/x50 devices. When the RIM device was in its conception, Cingular only allowed RIM wireless e-mail synchronization over their Mobitex network. RIM bargained and also allowed wireless Calendar.

Fast forward a few years later. Good raises a lot of venture capital and over $10M in funding from CINGULAR! Good promises total wireless synchronization and remote provisioning.

So, hence the litany of lawsuits from RIM vs. both Good and Cingular.

RIM is certainly in the position to retain its market. It has a great argument in protecting its patents, and it is expanding into current and next generation celluar networks.

Good, even though they have, er, good concepts- they can’t legally or technologically survive. Lets face it- they blatantly copied the RIM proprietary form factor, admitted to reverse engineering the RIM device (DMCA violations), and the good device runs on the slow, dated, and dying Mobitex network.

[smtpman]

MDS does not encapsulate traffic in email messages nor does it use HTTP. It's merely a virtual TCP/IP connection between the device and the MDS sever. MDS <--> BES <--> Device is correct, and all data back/forth is 3des encrypted.

The mds browser is just a sample application (mds server translates to chtml NOT WAP!!!!). Pretty useful sample app if you ask me. I'm not complaining.

you have a few choices in pushing data to the device. You can push to the device as an alert, push to an application's cache, or push to an application that is "listening" for it. This is all outlined in the MDS whitepaper on their website.

No idea how to build j2me applications, but building ASP applications that are accessible from the BlackBerry browser was a snap.

hth

[Sonic Mobility]

The MDS does http proxying but communication through the MDS to the Blackberry is via the BES. It isn't technically an email, but the same messaging layer is used to leverage the crypto that is already in place.

We build the Java Blackberry version of sonicadmin using the Java SDK provided by RIM and our developers seem to be happy enough with it (at least I haven't heard any complaints!). The native Java client gives us many advantages that you can't get from building a browser based application (local data caching, higher performance, improved security options, etc).