We had a chat with Chris Harold about his internal rollout of the Mobile Governance Council. It’s a private organization, but a very interesting way of establishing standards for IT setups. By determining what needs to be available from an internal smartphone rollout, such as remote wiping, availability, and all that jazz, Chris tells us how enterprise can outline their upcoming rollout. This kind of system also offers a way of solutions providers to squeeze their way into particular markets to solve specific problems. Take a listen!
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WES 08 Interview: Mobile Governance Council
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Rove’s Mobile Admin has been bumped up to version 4.0, featuring a per user licensing system, which allows individual workers to access any number of servers from their BlackBerry. Aside from that, there’s also a new web interface that gives IT personnel access from remote computers, as well as Vista support. BES admins and anyone handling any kind of server would do well to check it out.
Tracking e-mail through a BES is easy enough, but SMS text messaging from a BlackBerry has been a little trickier for admins. GWAVA has just released Retain, a clientless archiving system that aims to solve the issue. It installs on your BES in a half hour, and will keep track of all PIN and SMS messages, as well as phone logs. This sounds like a solid option for enterprises that want to be ready for audits and enforce their IT policy with an iron fist.
Josep spotted a link on the BlackBerry Forums to B*Remote, which is aimed to let admins and help desk operators fix BlackBerrys without having to haul the devices in. This way employees don’t have to show their shamed, clueless faces to the IT staff, and the IT staff don’t have to wrestle with walking them through fixing the problem. Everybody wins!
Today BoxTone has busted out a new asset management module, which will let BES admins track volume, inventory and security of BlackBerry devices, as well as pinpoint inactive BlackBerrys which are uselessly draining your enterprise’s budget. They’ve got a slew of other modules, including one for help desk personnel. BoxTone is a BES administration system very similar to Zenprise with a few twists. For one, they support Lotus Domino servers in addition to Exchange. Secondly, BoxTone has a core product for which you can buy additional modules that expand the basic functionality, this way BoxTone can be tailored to whatever your BES setup is like.
There’s been some debate over the differences between the Zenprise and BoxTone (mainly revolving around the presence of a web-based interface), but we’re going to be taking a closer look at both real soon just to see what the key selling points are. If you’ve got any experience with either, feel free to drop a comment.
Neil just gave us the heads up on a free virtual BlackBerry Technical Seminar this Thursday from 9 AM – 6 PM EST. A separate seminar will be available for anyone in the Asia-Pacific region on November 21st. What do you have to look forward to?
* See the next generation BlackBerry Enterprise Server
* Understand the opportunities in developing applications for the BlackBerry solution
* Learn what the latest updates and tools can do
* Ask tough technical questions and get answers direct from BlackBerry experts
* New Troubleshooting and Developing Tips and Tricks
* Hear from IT professionals and developers world-wide about how they’ve taken the BlackBerry solution far beyond email
* Chat online with select BlackBerry solution partners
Josep has tipped us off to Mobile Device Manager by CA, which aims to automate mundane and repetitive tasks, such as locking and unlocking devices, and setting up IT policies. By attributing BlackBerry security profiles to particular roles in a company’s Microsoft Active Directory, a lot of the bare-bones administration can handle itself.
* Leverages BlackBerry Enterprise Server IT policies to deliver over-the-air (OTA) management from a web-based interface, including device lock/unlock and data wipe to prevent access to data on lost or stolen devices
* Automated role-based device security and configuration enforcement and lifecycle management leveraging Active Directory data
* Automatic disabling of devices upon employee termination
* Customizable workflow for approvals, escalations, event management, and support processes
* A Bulk Addition feature that enables administrators to quickly roll out large numbers of devices
Windows Mobile and Symbian versions of the software are also in the works.
Jibi has scoped out a new feature in OS 4.3 which allows for a clean wipe of your BlackBerry back to factory settings. Handy, simple, and most of all, it resets all of your BES security restrictions. Given, all those IT policies get reinstated once you hook up to your BES again, the new JavaLoader command does make reselling a lot easier. Presuming you have the Java Desktop Environment installed, all you have to do is pull it up in your command prompt and type in “javaloader -u resettofactory”. Easy as pie.
Josep pointed us to a recent announcement from Double-Take, whose software offers failsafe security to BES servers. Their solution continually backs up your BES, ensuring data retention in the face of outages and other problems. These guys have worked on similar software for Exchange, SQL, and Lotus Notes servers, so they definitely know the drill when it comes to data security. If this sounds like something your enterprise could use, you can find more information over here.
Since covering Zenprise’s troubleshooting software back in July, I’ve had a chance to talk to some of the folks there about what they do. In a nutshell, Zenprise offers diagnostic tools to backend IT staff and dynamic troubleshooting flowcharts to front-line technical support in order to keep the company’s BlackBerry operations running smoothly. We would have liked to do a review, but we don’t run a BES at BBCool, and even if we did, we’re all so darned clever that we could figure out our own technical problems without some fancy-pants software package. That being said, we hooked up with the Paul Hinsberg, senior server engineer for the County of Alameda, California, who has been using Zenprise’s BlackBerry software since early beta testing. The county uses a little over a hundred BlackBerrys that have to be handled between 8 people.
Continue reading ‘Run-through: Zenprise for BlackBerry’
