What to consider when planning your mobility infrastructure
Mobility is being heralded as the next step in enhancing worker productivity, but rolling out a mobility infrastructure for your enterprise, if not planned effectively, can be an IT nightmare--frustrating for the end user, a headache to support personnel, and dangerous to the security of your organization.
While Microsoft has announced the integration of mobile features into their upcoming Exchange Server 2003 product, for many IT organizations upgrading to Exchange Server 2003 will be a lengthy process, and users want mobile access today. Thus, if you are running Exchange 5.5 or Exchange 2000 and have chosen Microsoft Mobile Information Server 2002 (MMIS 2002) as the method by which your users will access important data while away from the office, you've taken the first step to providing a secure, feature-rich mobile solution. How you put that solution in place will determine much of your success. Once you analyze the myriad of options MMIS 2002 provides, you'll be able to determine the configuration that works best for you.
Device support
The devices you will support for allowing users wireless access to your network is the first factor to consider when planning your mobility solution. Device support ultimately determines the applications you can offer and the security you can provide.
Pocket PC 2002
It's no surprise that Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 devices, including Pocket PC Phone Edition, can benefit from all that Mobile Information Server 2002 has to offer. Their integrated Pocket IE browser supports communication via HTTP, HTTPS, and WAP, and can render information in HTML and WML. In addition, these are the only devices available today that support the new wireless synchronization features that are discussed in the next section.
Smartphone 2002
Microsoft's newest mobile device platform also acts as a rich client for Mobile Information Server. Smartphone-based devices, including the Orange SPV currently available in Europe, will allow you not only to browse your mailbox via its Pocket IE browser, but will also allow for secure synchronization to Exchange via Server ActiveSync.
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) devices
WAP devices typically come in the form of mobile phones. These devices have a microbrowser capable of communicating in WAP, and they often support WTLS (Wireless Transport Layer Security) for secure WAP communications. Most often, WAP devices can also receive SMS (Short Message Service) push notifications. While these devices cannot use all features of MMIS 2002, they do have a large installed base among mobile users and should be taken into account.
Other devices
Supporting other devices, whether they be pagers, two-way text messaging devices, or non-Microsoft PDAs, is an option when using MMIS, but these devices may not support all the technologies needed for the application you wish to make available. For example, devices and browsers not explicitly supported by Microsoft may work with MMIS, but certain menu items or features may not work correctly. Be sure to fully test the devices you will be supporting in your deployment prior to committing to them.
Microsoft's complete list of fully tested WAP devices is available on the Mobile Information Server Web site at
www.microsoft. com/miserver.
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