As PDAs become increasingly powerful and the need to access and store larger amounts of data rises, so does the need to secure that data. When deploying mobile devices and granting users remote access to local network resources, be it email, an intranet site, file shares or specific line of business applications, the administrator needs to know that those devices are doing so securely, will automatically lock themselves if left unattended and can be remotely wiped if they are suspected of being lost or stolen.

In this article I shall look at the foremost products available today, in the author's opinion, as well as the features that should be considered when evaluating a device management solution. If you are interested in knowing more, or have any questions relating to any of the information in this article, call Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225.

As PDAs become increasingly powerful and the need to access and store larger amounts of data rises, so does the need to secure that data. When deploying mobile devices and granting users remote access to local network resources, be it email, an intranet site, file shares or specific line of business applications, the administrator needs to know that those devices are doing so securely, will automatically lock themselves if left unattended and can be remotely wiped if they are suspected of being lost or stolen.

The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) is a standards body responsible for developing and ratifying open standards for the mobile phone industry. OMA-DM is the device management protocol developed by the body for the remote management of mobile phones and PDAs.

The OMA currently manages a number of standards including:

• MMS - Multi-Media Messaging
• WAP - Wireless Application Protocol
• OMA-DS - Open Mobile Alliance - Data Synchronisation
• OMA-CP - Open Mobile Alliance - Client Provisioning
  

System Center 2008 Mobile Device Manager is the latest addition to the System Center suite of management tools.

The Microsoft System Center is a modular collection of products designed to provide the IT administrator with the ability to capture detailed information about the hardware, software, policies and processes in use within the organisation and to harness that information to dynamically manage the systems and operations to reduce costs and improve availability.

The suite consists of the following products: