Blackberry device , RIM NOC, BES and SAP

Blackberry Enterprise Server and the Network Operation Center of RIM

Here I have given little information about the Blackberry device, Blackberry Enterprise server and the Network Operation Center of Research In Motion.

We know that a blackberry device when configured with the intranet network of an organization can receive emails being pushed from the intranet mail server. The push option of the blackberry will notify you whenever a new mail comes in the blackberry or a meeting request comes is one of the important features of this device. The under given paragraph explains how the whole the Blackberry device the Back end Blackberry Enterprise server and the Network Operation Center of RIM works together.

Every enterprise which has a Blackberry infrastructure has a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES). The BES is a server which can talk to the Micros soft Exchange Server or lotus Domino of the enterprise to retrieve the mails. Once a mail comes in the mail exchange server of a enterprise the mail is retrieved by the BES server and then sent it to the NOC of RIM. The NOC is the data center where all the mails or data transfer between the BES and the Blackberry device passes through. There are two NOC of RIM one is in Canada and the other one in US. From the NOC the emails will be transferred to the appropriate devices. One of the main advantages for using the NOC is the security advantage; all the traffic between the BES is encrypted using triple DES as it travels through the NOC. And because all the traffic goes through the NOC before being routed to the BES, the BES accepts incoming transactions from only one location that is the NOC thus receiving only trusted data. Some other smart phones accept incoming transactions from the internet which makes it exposed to receive untrusted data.

Blackberry and SAP

Research In Motion (RIM) and SAP® are making SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) available virtually anywhere, anytime.

Read the full information here:

http://uk.blackberry.com/solutions/needs/intelligence/sap.jsp

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/campaign/SAPcampaign/

Simple way of connecting a Blackberry application to SAP

Connecting Java Applications for Blackberry to SAP Application

The most common way to connect a Blackberry application to a SAP application is by using the standard HTTP protocol. As of now there is no API which is included by the RIM which allows the Blackberry application to directly talk to a SAP application. The work around to connect to a SAP application from a Blackberry application is to employ a back-end application which supports HTTP protocol. The flow of connection is as follows:

1. The Blackberry application sends data to the back-end application using HTTP POST

2. It can retrieve data HTTP GET

3. The Blackberry application can even synchronize data with the back-end application which handles the connection between itself and the SAP application.

The back-end application makes use of JCo to connect itself to the SAP application. Its a very good and a common way to pass all the data exchanged between the Blackberry application and the beck-end application in a form which can be parsed by both the applications. This will enable the back-end application to pass the data to and fro between the Blackberry application and the SAP application after parsing it in a form suitable by the SAP application.

Easy start steps for developing a Blackberry application.

1. Download the development tool and install it

You can download the JDE which is provided by RIM to develop Blackberry applications. The other option is the eclipse plug in which can also be used to develop Blackberry applications.

2. Open the JDE and create a new workspace.

3. Create a new project in this workspace.

4. Now you can add classes to this project and build the application by clicking the Build menu item in the menu bar.

5. Once the project is build the JDE creates some files in the build folder.

6. If the build is successful then you can run the application in the simulator by pressing the F5 key of your keyboard or by clicking the Build All and Run in the Build menu item in the menu bar.

7. By default a simulator is already selected by the JDE and opens the simulator.

8. On the simulator you can find many icons of different applications which are already available.

9. Search for your particular project name (usually a black icon) with the project name you have given will be available.

10. Clicking on this icon will run the application.

Configuring MDS for accessing network through the simulator

In order to access intranet or internet from the simulator of the Blackberry we need to run the Mobile Data Service (MDS). The MDS comes along with the JDE or we can download it separately. If you are inside a intranet then you need to set the proxy correctly in the MDS. To set the proxy settings follow the below steps:

1. Go to MDS folder

2. Next go to Config folder

3. You willfind a file called rimpublic.property

4. In # [HTTP HANDLER] change the proxies enabled to True and change the proxy host and the proxy port.