Tom Amiro of the MEP QA team offers some great MEP installation tips on his blog, supplementing the instructions in the MEP Installation Guide.
If your EIS/EAI system is SAP ERP, Art Frechette, also of the MEP QA team, provides essential instructions on how to configure MEP to access SAP.
For an engineering view of Sun Java System Mobile Enterprise Platform (MEP), here are two blog entries from members of the MEP team: Santiago Pericas-Geertsen's blog provides a brief intro to MEP architecture and deployment, and Ryan Shoemaker's blog provides an insight into the MEP client architecture.
Ryan and Santiago helped introduce MEP to the world at JavaOne 2008 in May. Ryan's posted the JavaOne slides on his blog.
For more information about MEP, visit the product website.
We invite you to download MEP for a free evaluation at http://www.sun.com/software/products/mep/get.jsp.
Sun Java System Mobile Enterprise Platform (MEP) is an end-to-end mobility solution that consists of multiple components, and it can be deployed in several different configurations. This article provides details on MEP deployment and on MEP architecture.
MEP can be deployed in two different ways, in a mobile provider managed scenario and in an enterprise managed scenario.
In a mobile provider managed scenario, such as the one shown in Figure 1-1, the Gateway engine and its associated sync database form the Gateway tier in the carrier's network. The corporate network includes the MEP Enterprise tier components and the EIS/EAI system.
In an enterprise managed scenario, such as the one shown in Figure 1-2, all of the MEP components and the database or EIS/EAI system are in the corporate network.
MEP supports synchronization of enterprise data between Open Mobile Alliance Data Synchronization (OMA DS) enabled mobile phones and a database or EIS/EAI system.
The MEP architecture is based entirely on open industry standards and is designed to operate a highly scalable, fault-tolerant environment tightly integrated with the existing infrastructure. MEP includes support for automatic failover and load-balancing, providing near-linear scalability. This architecture has been proven in carrier-grade deployments.
See the Sun Java System Mobile Enterprise Platform 1.0 Architectural Overview for more information about the architecture and features of MEP.
The major highlights of the MEP architecture are as follows.
The Mobile Client Business Object (MCBO) API provides an easy-to-use programming interface. It is provided as a Java ME library that the client application developer can use to develop a MEP Client application.
See Sun Java System Mobile Enterprise Platform 1.0 Developer’s Guide for Client Applications for information about using the MCBO API.
The MEP Gateway is the server component that interprets the incoming OMA DS messages and translates them into commands and data for Enterprise Connectors. The interface between the Gateway and the Enterprise Connectors is the Java Content Repository API.
The sync database contains the tables required by the MEP Gateway to store synchronization timestamps for client devices, mappings between client and server items, user information, configuration information, and synchronization message digest data.
The Enterprise Connector Business Object (ECBO) API provides an easy-to-use programming interface that makes it easy to build Enterprise Connectors.
See Sun Java System Mobile Enterprise Platform 1.0 Developer’s Guide for Enterprise Connectors for information about using the ECBO API.
Sun JCA Adapters are Java EE Connector Architecture-based resource adapters that read and write data in the native format of specific databases or EIS/EAI systems. MEP includes adapters for SAP ERP, Siebel EAI, JDBC, and Oracle.
The figure above shows a two-tier
architecture, consisting of a Gateway tier and an Enterprise tier. The Gateway
tier includes the Gateway Engine and Web Service connector. The Enterprise
tier includes the Web Service endpoint and Enterprise Connector, as well as
the Sun JCA Adapter that communicates with the EIS/EAI system. The Web Service
connector in the Gateway tier uses SOAP over HTTPS (or HTTP) to communicate
with the Web Service endpoint in the Enterprise tier. The Enterprise Connector
uses the ECBO APIs to communicate with the Connector Library and the JCA APIs
to communicate with the Sun JCA adapter which, in turn, communicates with
the EIS/EAI system.
The Gateway and Enterprise Tier are combined into a single tier in the case of the enterprise managed deployment.
We invite you to download MEP for a free evaluation at http://www.sun.com/software/products/mep/get.jsp.
You can also sign up for a Proof-of-Concept
(POC), or subscribe to a full service plan, where Sun and our
partners will provide the expertise to deploy MEP in your production
environment.
Today’s workforce requires real-time remote access to corporate data. For example, field service technicians must update their work tickets as soon as they complete a task so that the company’s scheduling software can efficiently allocate resources. Field sales agents need to update customer accounts as they go from one customer site to another. The challenges in addressing these use cases revolved around
To fulfill the needs of the mobile workforce, we are happy to announce the general availability of Sun Java System Mobile Enterprise Platform (MEP) 1.0. MEP enables mobile access for a range of off-the-shelf and home-grown enterprise applications for a variety of mobile devices. At the core of MEP is an open standards-based platform consisting of Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server, MySQL and Java ME to provide reliable two-way data synchronization with security, device management, and offline access.
Standard use cases for MEP include field service, logistics, and sales force automation, allowing the mobile workforce to connect easily and securely to many enterprise applications. MEP can operate in an Occasionally Connected Computing (OCC) environment, using client caching to allow mobile workers to access and update their data, even when they are off the network.
■ Out-of-the-box connectivity to many enterprise application platforms
■ Support for a wide variety of mobile devices
■ Offline access to data when there is no network coverage
■ Encryption and data fading/wiping, which extend enterprise application security to mobile devices
■ Support for over-the-air provisioning of mobile clients
■ Tools and templates that simplify the development and customization of mobile applications
■ Based on open industry standards and robust and scalable Java technologies
We invite you to download MEP for a free evaluation at http://www.sun.com/software/products/mep/get.jsp.
You can also sign up for a Proof-of-Concept
(POC), or subscribe to a full service plan, where Sun and our
partners will provide the expertise to deploy MEP in your production
environment.
For additional information, go to the MEP product page and the MEP documentation.
Stay
tuned for more blogs from the Sun MEP team, with a deep-dive into MEP
features, configuration, and use cases as well as benefits to the
customer, in the coming days and weeks.