1. Data-Connected Devices
An
unconnected BlackBerry smartphone has interesting and useful features,
but it is not using its full potential. You can maintain your calendar,
to-do lists and address book, take notes, and, with the appropriate
calling plan, make and receive phone calls. You can play games and
install third-party applications on the device. You would be, however,
limited to applications that don’t rely on a connection to an external
server for its data. You could send and receive Short Message Service
(SMS) messages, because SMS makes its connection through a channel on
the voice network instead of the data network. If you installed the
BlackBerry Desktop Manager software package, you could synchronize your
Personal Information Management (PIM) data (calendar, to-do, address
book, and note data) with one or more Personal Information Management
(PIM) applications on your Windows-based or Apple PC.
You would certainly
receive benefits from its capabilities, but you’d be challenged by your
need to physically connect (via USB cable or Bluetooth) with a PC to
make the data available somewhere else besides on your smartphone.
The difference between a phone
and a smartphone is the applications the phone runs. Modern mobile
phones include applications; the difference is the complexity of the
applications and the type of user for which the applications are
designed. Smartphones typically include a host of personal productivity
applications that make the mobile user’s life easier. Along with those
smartphone capabilities, and the true reason why people purchase
smartphones, is the benefit the mobile user receives from the
connectivity that comes with the smartphone and its corresponding data
plan. People purchase smartphones because of their application
capability, but that capability is enhanced dramatically through the
connection the smartphone has to data residing somewhere else.
With a data plan
enabled smartphone, not only can a mobile user do all the things he can
do with an unconnected smartphone, he can also use other features that
enhance the value of the device. Data-connected BlackBerry smartphones
can
Wirelessly send and receive email messages.
Wirelessly synchronize calendar, to-do lists, notes, address book data, and more (enterprise-activated devices only).
Browse the Internet or even the company Intranet.
Receive application data pushed from a server.
Install applications by downloading them from a server or receive applications pushed to them from the server.
Wirelessly
upgrade the BlackBerry device software running on the device (provided
that the carrier supports it and the device is running a supported
version of the BlackBerry Device Software).
Use
Location Based Services (LBS) to access information, services, and
coupons relevant to where the mobile user is currently located and
provide turn by turn directions to a destination.
Synchronize data with an external database/database server (through the BlackBerry Synchronization Service and Sync Server SDK).
And much, much more—this is in no way a complete list.
2. Connecting Through the Firewall
On a typical smartphone, the
mobile user can use Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) or Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) to access network resources
from the browser or a custom application. If the data the device needs
to access is located behind a corporate firewall, the organization’s
network administrators must open the firewall ports to provide access to
the data from mobile devices. It’s important to understand that there
are risks involved when opening firewall ports to enable users to access
data normally only available to resources located inside the firewall.
On the other hand, the
BlackBerry has the same connectivity typical smartphones have, plus
additional ones provided by the BlackBerry Infrastructure.
BlackBerry devices activated in an enterprise have access to internal
(inside the firewall) resources without the need to open up additional
firewall ports.
Although
a developer could use an Internet connection to provide BlackBerry
smartphones with access to data, the security and performance issues
inherent in that option make it a dangerous choice. If the data the user
needs to access resides inside the corporate firewall, opening firewall
ports to enable the mobile user with access only opens up another area
for hackers. When a government agency, a medical organization governed
by HIPAA (U.S. Government Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act) or an organization that processes credit cards for
Visa or MasterCard opens up a firewall port, it has to have a good
reason for doing so.
3. Service Books
Before
we talk about the available connections, it’s important to understand
how those connections are configured on the BlackBerry. Many of the
connectivity options available to BlackBerry devices are controlled by
Service Books. Service Books tell the BlackBerry what connectivity
options are available and how to reach the appropriate gateway servicing
that connection. When a wireless carrier provisions a BlackBerry
smartphone with a data plan or when a BlackBerry activates against a
BlackBerry Enterprise Server, the required Service Books are delivered
to the device, thereby enabling connectivity through the connections
described in the Service Book. Each carrier can configure its Service
Books in different ways, and Enterprise BlackBerry administrators can
control what connections are or are not allowed, even to the point of
being able to disable something that the carrier has enabled.
Figure 1
shows an example of a BlackBerry Service Book from a BlackBerry Bold
smartphone running on the AT&T wireless network. It describes the
settings for WAP connections . The
gateway is provided by the Wireless Carrier (WAP 2.0, in this case). If
the Service Book were missing, the device would be unable to connect via
WAP 2.0.
Figure 2
shows the MDS Service Book. This Service Book is provisioned by the BES
during enterprise activation. If the Service Book were not on the
device, the mobile user would not be able to communicate through MDS to
internal resources.
The
default applications on the BlackBerry smartphone (such as the browser
and email client) are already coded to look for the appropriate Service
Book before attempting an activity enabled by a Service Book. When
building Java applications for the BlackBerry platform, in most cases,
the developer must first determine if the appropriate Service Book is
available before attempting a connection. RIM includes an application
programming interface (API) that developers can use to easily locate a
particular Service Book and retrieve configuration values from within an
application (net.rim.device.api.servicebook).
