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iPhone
All posts tagged iPhone
Since 90% of the world’s population has mobile network coverage, lets take a look at how they’re using it, where they’re using it, and what we should expect from the future…
Interesting stuff!
-Rob
In my ‘Consumerization of IT Collides with MEAP’ article last week, I described how to connect iPhones and iPads to Microsoft’s On-Premise infrastructure. In this week’s scenario, I’ll use the picture below to illustrate how iOS utilizes many of Gartner’s Mobile Enterprise Application Platform Critical Capabilities to connect to Microsoft’s Cloud services in Azure:
As you can see from the picture above:
- For the Management Tools Critical Capability, there is no Cloud-based device management solution, policy-enforcement, or software distribution solution from Microsoft for iOS. As I mentioned in last week’s post, consumer software distribution comes from the App Store and the enterprise equivalent is facilitated via internal web servers and user-clickable URLs.
- For both the Client and Server Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and Multichannel Tool Critical Capability, iOS uses Visual Studio. Endpoint development consists of HTML5, ECMAScript 5, and CSS3 delivered by ASP.NET via Web Roles. WCF REST + JSON Web services can also be created and consumed via Ajax calls from the browser. On the Cloud side of things, the Windows Azure SDK plugs into Visual Studio and provides iOS developers with everything they need to build Cloud applications. It includes a Cloud emulator to simulate all aspects of Windows Azure and AppFabric on their development computer. In scenarios where native development is required by the customers, the Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS can be used to allow XCode/Objective-C to securely communicate with the Microsoft cloud.
- For the cross-platform Application Client Runtime Critical Capability, iOS uses the WebKit browser called Safari to provide HTML5 + CSS3 + ECMAScript5 capabilities. Offline storage is important to keep potentially disconnected iPhones and iPads working and this is facilitated by Web Storage which is accessible via JavaScript.
- For the Security Critical Capability, iOS provides AES 256 hardware encryption as well as Data Protection based on the user’s device passcode for data-at-rest. Data-in-transit is secured via SSL, VPN, and 802.1X. Auth in the Microsoft cloud is handled via the Windows Azure AppFabric Access Control Service (ACS).
- For the Enterprise Application Integration Tools Critical Capability, iOS can reach out to servers directly via Web Services or indirectly through the Cloud via the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus to connect to other enterprise packages.
- The Multichannel Server Critical Capability to support any open protocol is handled automatically by Windows Azure. Cross-Platform wire protocols riding on top of HTTP are exposed by Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and include SOAP, REST and Atompub. Cross-Platform data serialization is also provided by WCF including XML, JSON, and OData. These Multichannel capabilities support thick clients making web service calls as well as thin web clients making Ajax calls. Distributed caching to dramatically boost the performance of any client is provided by Windows Azure AppFabric Caching.
- As you might imagine, the Hosting Critical Capability is handled by Windows Azure. Beyond providing the most complete solution of any Cloud provider, Windows Azure Connect provides an IPSec-protected connection with your On-Premises network and SQL Azure Data Sync can be used to move data between SQL Server and SQL Azure. This gives you the Hybrid Cloud solution you might be looking for.
- For the Packaged Mobile Apps or Components Critical Capability, iOS runs cross-platform mobile apps including OneNote, Bing, Tag, and of course the critical ActiveSync component that makes push emails, contacts, calendars, and device management policies possible.
While iOS meets many of Gartner’s Critical Capabilities, it doesn’t fare very well when it comes to cloud-based device management. That being said, this is not a strong area for many mobile endpoints at this stage of the game.
Next week, I’ll cover how Android connects to an On-Premises Microsoft infrastructure.
Best Regards,
Rob
In my last ‘Consumerization of IT Collides with MEAP’ article, I described how to connect a Windows Phone device to Microsoft’s Cloud servers in Azure. By now you’re probably thinking, “It’s easy to talk about Microsoft endpoints talking to Microsoft servers.” So in this week’s scenario, I’ll use the picture below to illustrate how iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad can utilize many of Gartner’s Critical Capabilities to connect to Microsoft’s On-Premise infrastructure:
As you can see from the picture above:
- For the Management Tools Critical Capability, iOS uses Microsoft Exchange for On-Premise policy enforcement via Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) but has no private software distribution equivalent to System Center Configuration Manager 2007 from Microsoft today. Instead, in-house apps are hosted and distributed via a web server over wireless by having a user click on a URL. In the future, System Center Configuration Manager 2012 will be able to better manage iOS devices.
- For both the Client and Server Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and Multichannel Tool Critical Capability, iOS uses Visual Studio. While the Server/EAI development functionality is the same as every other platform, endpoint development will consist of HTML5, ECMAScript 5, and CSS3 delivered by ASP.NET. WCF REST + JSON Web services can also be created and consumed via Ajax calls from the browser.
- For the cross-platform Application Client Runtime Critical Capability, we will rely on iOS’s WebKit browser called Safari to provide HTML5 + CSS3 + ECMAScript5 capabilities. Offline storage is important to keep potentially disconnected iPhones and iPads working and this is facilitated by Web Storage which is accessible via JavaScript.
- For the Security Critical Capability, iOS provides AES 256 hardware encryption as well as Data Protection based on the user’s device passcode for data-at-rest. Data-in-transit is secured via SSL, VPN, and 802.1X. Built-in LDAP support allows it to access corporate directory services.
- For the Enterprise Application Integration Tools Critical Capability, iOS can reach out to servers directly via Web Services or indirectly via SQL Server or BizTalk using SSIS/Adapters to connect to other enterprise packages.
- The Multichannel Server Critical Capability to support any open protocol directly, via Reverse Proxy, or VPN is facilitated by ISA/TMG/UAG/IIS. Crosss-Platform wire protocols riding on top of HTTP are exposed by Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and include SOAP, REST and Atompub. Cross-Platform data serialization is also provided by WCF including XML, JSON, and OData. These Multichannel capabilities support thick clients making web service calls as well as thin web clients making Ajax calls. Distributed caching to dramatically boost the performance of any client is provided by Windows Server AppFabric Caching.
- While the Hosting Critical Capability may not be as relevant in an on-premises scenario, Windows Azure Connect provides an IPSec-protected connection to the Cloud and SQL Azure Data Sync can be used to move data between SQL Server and SQL Azure.
- For the Packaged Mobile Apps or Components Critical Capability, iOS runs cross-platform mobile apps including OneNote, Bing, Tag, and of course the critical ActiveSync component that makes push emails, contacts, calendars, and device management policies possible.
As you can see, iOS meets many of Gartner’s Critical Capabilities. It’s really improved over the years in areas of security and device management. As you can see from the picture, the big gap is with the client application runtime critical capability. Native development via Xcode/Objective-C is where Apple wants to steer you and Microsoft doesn’t make native tools, runtimes or languages for this platform. You can certainly kick the tires and perform your own due diligence on MonoTouch from our friend Miguel de Icaza and his colleagues in order to reuse your existing .NET and C# skills. From a Microsoft perspective though, you’re definitely looking at HTML5 delivered via ASP.NET.
Next week, I’ll cover how iOS connects to the Cloud.
Best Regards,
Rob
