Mobile Device Manager - Future?
- Hi,
I'm really enthousiastic about Mobile Device Manager, but I'm wondering how it will stand in the(near) future? Microsoft announced that it's based on open standards (OMA DM), so manufacturers like Nokia could port their devices to support MDM. But since the launce of SCMDM, there is no new news or whatsoever. If you google on "System Center Mobile Device Manager", you'll receive the announcements of the product, posts of over a year old.... Microsoft partners in plugins are scarce, i know of Zipper and Odyssey, are there more?
The product is stable, good working, but will it stand against the competition, is it compatible enough, has it got enough features (the one thing i'm missing for example is SMS provisioning) and has it got a real future?
I'd like to hear your opinions....
All Replies
- I hear you. I would like a roadmap of the product, and what might show up in future releases. MSFT hasn't really shared a lot here.
SCMDM is based on OMA DM, and if Nokia wanted to implement support in their devices that could probably be done quite quickly. Note though that not all features of SCMDM are OMA DM based. The VPN client for instance is not a standard, so that would take some extra work for Nokia. The certificates probably work on Nokia, though I don't know how one would go about implementing it. I've actually had the idea of trying to join some Nokia devices to an SCMDM server by manually typing in the OMA DM settings, but I don't know whether that would work (lacking client certificates and all).
I think it might be possible with SMS provisioning with a little effort (I think the domain enroll client on the device meets most needs). Shouldn't be a problem running Kannel, and do some integration work. I haven't gotten around to that either yet though :)
There aren't that many MDM solutions out there that are actually designed for the needs of larger enterprises so there's definitely an audience. A lot of people have gotten the impression that it's a very complex product, and are "afraid" of it. Now, while I would agree that it's more complex than a simple MDM hosted by a provider it's not that hard if you are willing to invest some time.
I try to blog about the product and creating content, there's also a couple of other guys in the forums here spreading the word, but I would probably still agree there's a limited amount of "buzz" around the product. (Now the same can be said of a couple of other MDM platforms - it's not like these products cater to everyone after all.) I don't think Microsoft’s Device Management is going anywhere. Exchange alone just doesn't cut it for enterprise deployments. Other device management products don't scale properly... great for SME customers, but when you start talking 10,000+ users it's hard to get scaling documents out of other vendors. MS have this scaled this to tens of thousands of users on a single instance.
Deploying software with WSUS BITTS technology is great.
Policy management through GPO is fantastic, especially when you can build your own.
The certificates control is great.
The VPN is awesome, but could be integrated into ISA.
It would be nice to have the choice of an easy SSTP tunnel for SME customers, and IPSEC for larger deployments.
I personally think the MDM gateway should have been integrated into ISA 2006 ! I’m guessing this would have taken a lot more time. This would have increased security and reduced hardware costs. SME customers have an issue with so many servers. There's lot of hardware involved.
SMS username / password notification can be built into the Self Service portal. You could use a third party SMS vendor, or get Kannel up and running. Check out Andreas’ Blog for Kannel ideas. SMS provisioning would be a bit more work !
Bits missing !
1. File Sync (Not a lot of development required)
2. Admin initiated, Device Policy Update (Pushed through Alerter Service).
3. Admin initiated Software Update (Pushed through Alerter Service).
4. Scripted Software deployments (Wishful thinking)
5. Remote control.
As for integrating Vendors ! Check out - http://aetherpal.w2bi.com/abt_scmdm.html
I personally think it would have been better marketed as Exchange Mobile Device Management or Exchange Phone Manger rather than the mouthful System Centre Mobile Device Manger 2008.
You did ask !
Cheers Wayne
Airloom
At both MMS and Tech Ed US 2009, the Configuration Manager team revealed some important news regarding the future of device management. Here are a few of the key messages that were shared:
- The next major release of Configuration Manager will have the major MDM functionality for device management including SW Dist, Inventory, Settings Management, reporting, etc;
- Both desktops and mobile devices can be managed by a "single pane of glass";
- Device Management will not require the use of a VPN server;
- Corporate network access can be obtained by "then current" solutions supported by the mobile devic client and server infrastructure;
- Mobile device management will embrace the same "user centric" model as recently announced (more here);
- Product roadmaps for both Configuration Manager 2007 (DM) and Mobile Device Manager both converge on this next version of Config Manager
While there are surely more details that everyone would like to hear, this should be great news for those wanting to hear a confirmation that Microsoft is committed to continuing and improving mobile device management.
Gary
Gary IdeNot everyone gets to travel to the US conferences :) So thanks for sharing the info Gary.
I wouldn't say I'm surprised that SCCM and SCMDM converges. We saw some attempts with SMS2003, although that worked better when integrating Afaria for the mobile side I guess. (Or other third-party apps.)
I've mixed feelings about it though. Yes, it makes sense to have one management system for both computers and mobile devices, especially since mobile devices are converging with computers already. But this doesn't necessarily work out in all organizations. You still need some knowledge of devices, and not all "desktop guys" understand the mobile space.
There will surely be some paranoid people out there claiming that this is another attempt from MSFT to control "everything", and while that might not be the intention it might be a tougher sell in some scenarios. Granted SCMDM requires you to use Windows Mobile devices, but it didn't feel as overwhelming since it was "just" an MDM platform. It's very important that it's not marketed as "invest in a lot of MSFT servers to manage your devices".
There are of course other management platforms that have already started to go converged as far as mobile devices and traditional computers though, so I'll be first in line to check out MSFT's stab at it too and see how it fares :)
Regardless of the integration of the two the feature set is important. We don't want too lose features present in SCMDM. And while the VPN might not be required anymore we want it as an option. Support for Nokia devices would be nice too. And the other features mentioned by Wayne too. But then again - no matter what MSFT releases we'll always be wanting more :)- Thanks for the update Gary.
There is a lot of operational symmetry between Config Manger and Mobile Device Manager so I can only see this as a good thing, technically speaking! I’m not sure customers would like the idea, unless there is very clear and easy migration path with some licensing consideration.
I had the TechLog article sent to me in April and I read “Integrated” to mean another management view… rather than a replacement… I guess we’ll see soon enough..
Mobile Device Manger has to convert Group Policies to OMA DM so there is no symmetry with Laptops, Desktops or Server; Therefore I’m guessing it will be more like integrating the MDM Device Management Server Code into Configuration Manger rather than rewriting it from scratch.
Mobile Device Software Distribution has to convert CAB files to WSUS metadata, so there is very little symmetry there either. That’s if we’ll still be using WSUS to deploy software ?
I’m hoping the only thing we’ll need to change is the URL/URI of the Device Management and Software Distribution Servers.
So I’m guessing Symbian support will be some way off !
Cheers Wayne
Airloom
