Sun's MEP Provides Access to Enterprise Information Systems for Workers on the Move
Sun Microsystems (News - Alert) has announced the general availability of its Mobile Enterprise Platform (MEP). The platform enables mobile workers to access their company's enterprise information systems (which run on Sun) from their mobile devices and smart phones including RIM's BlackBerry and Palm's Treo.
According to company officials, MEP is based on open standards platform consisting of Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server, MySQL and Java ME and provides two-way data synchronization with security, device management, and offline access features for enterprises with Sun servers in their infrastructure.
MEP 1.0 "lets enterprises give their distributed workforce access to the application they're building with the rest of our stack," Paul Hinz, director of Sun's application platform group and Java enterprise systems, told InternetNews.com. Sun had put MEP 1.0 platform to beta at Java One in May.
According to company sources, the device-agnostic platform has the ability to provide out-of-the-box access to many enterprise application platforms, including Siebel and SAP (News - Alert) and offline access to data when there is no network coverage. It also ensures security of enterprise applications accessed from mobile devices by authenticating users and encrypting data.
Making the MEP platform generally available is a logical move for Sun says IDC (News - Alert) analyst Ryan Reith. Talking to InternetNews.com, Reith said, "A lot of the big guys have done this on the PC side, building enterprise platforms for IT, and they now realize the growth is within the mobile enterprise. They need to make sure that information goes securely across virtual private networks and follows IT security policies."
Satish Hemachandran, product line manager with Sun's application platform group pointed out that MEP 1.0 provides secure transmission of corporate data throughout the chain of transmission. It supports SSL for the transmission to and from mobile devices, uses 3DES, or Triple DES encryption on the device. The 3DES encryption standard encrypts data in three steps and uses three keys instead of one and is based on the Data Encryption Standard (DES).
The company sources have pointed out that although 3DES is being replaced by the Advanced Encryption Standard, which is faster and more secure, The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) considers 3DES to be appropriate security through 2030.
MEP 1.0 lets system administrators wipe mobile devices that are lost or stolen. It also lets administrators lock lost or stolen devices so data on them cannot be accessed.
Sun officials also added that MEP 1.0 supports synchronization of enterprise data between mobile phones using Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Data Synchronization and databases, enterprise information systems (EIS) or enterprise application integration (EAI) systems.
The OMA is a standards body, which develops open standards for the mobile phone industry.
"MEP's an end to end solution that can integrate data from a wide range of back end applications such as CRM, logistics applications or whatever … massage the data and make it mobile ready, and transfer it onto your mobile platform," Satish Hemachandran told InternetNews.com
According to Sun officials, MEP uses Sun JCA Adapters, which read and write data in the native form of specific databases or EIS/EAI systems. It provides adapters for SAP ERP, Siebel EAI, JDBC and Oracle (News - Alert) out of the box.
The company said field service, logistics and sales force automation are the main markets for MEP-based applications.
Mark your calendars for Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO — the biggest and most comprehensive IP communications event of the year. ITEXPO (News - Alert) (News - Alert) will take place in Los Angeles, California, September 16-18, 2008, featuring three valuable days of exhibits, conferences, and networking opportunities you can’t afford to miss. Register now! Nitya Prashant is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Nitya's articles, please visit her columnist page.
More
More Stories >> Resource Center Stories