OMA Device Management

Last updated

OMA Device Management is a device management protocol specified by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Device Management (DM) Working Group and the Data Synchronization (DS) Working Group. [1] The current approved specification of OMA DM is version 1.2.1, [2] the latest modifications to this version released in June 2008. [3] The candidate release 2.0 was scheduled to be finalized in September 2013. [4]

Contents

Overview

OMA DM specification is designed for management of mobile devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, and tablet computers. [5] Device management is intended to support the following uses:

All of the above functions are supported by the OMA DM specification, and a device may optionally implement all or a subset of these features. Since OMA DM specification is aimed at mobile devices, it is designed with sensitivity to the following:

Technical description

OMA DM was originally developed by The SyncML Initiative Ltd, an industry consortium formed by many mobile device manufacturers. The SyncML Initiative got consolidated into the OMA umbrella as the scope and use of the specification was expanded to include many more devices and support global operation.

Technically, the OMA DM protocol uses XML for data exchange, more specifically the sub-set defined by SyncML. The device management takes place by communication between a server (which is managing the device) and the client (the device being managed). OMA DM is designed to support and utilize any number of data transports such as:

The communication protocol is a request-response protocol. Authentication and challenge of authentication are built-in to ensure the server and client are communicating only after proper validation. The server and client are both stateful, meaning a specific sequence of messages are to be exchanged only after authentication is completed to perform any task.

The communication is initiated by the OMA DM server, asynchronously, using any of the methods available such as a WAP Push or SMS. The initial message from server to client is said to be in the form of a notification, or alert message.

Once the communication is established between the server and client, a sequence of messages might be exchanged to complete a given device management task. OMA DM does provide for alerts, which are messages that can occur out of sequence, and can be initiated by either server or client. Such alerts are used to handle errors, abnormal terminations etc.

Several parameters relating to the communication such as the maximum message size can be negotiated between the server and client during the initiation of a session. In order to transfer large objects, the protocol does allow for sending them in smaller chunks.

Error recovery based on timeouts are not specified completely, hence, different implementations could possibly differ (protocol is not fully specified relating to these, and seem to leave them open intentionally).

The protocol specifies exchange of Packages during a session, each package consisting of several messages, and each message in turn consisting of one or more commands. The server initiates the commands and the client is expected to execute the commands and return the result via a reply message.

See also

Related Research Articles

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating communication sessions that include voice, video and messaging applications. SIP is used in Internet telephony, in private IP telephone systems, as well as mobile phone calling over LTE (VoLTE).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XMPP</span> Communications protocol for message-oriented middleware

Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol is an open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML, it enables the near-real-time exchange of structured data between two or more network entities. Designed to be extensible, the protocol offers a multitude of applications beyond traditional IM in the broader realm of message-oriented middleware, including signalling for VoIP, video, file transfer, gaming and other uses.

OBEX is a communications protocol that facilitates the exchange of binary objects between devices. It is maintained by the Infrared Data Association but has also been adopted by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group and the SyncML wing of the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). One of OBEX's earliest popular applications was in the Palm III. This PDA and its many successors use OBEX to exchange business cards, data, even applications.

SyncML is the former name for a platform-independent information synchronization standard. The project is currently referred to as Open Mobile Alliance Data Synchronization and Device Management. The purpose of SyncML is to offer an open standard as a replacement for existing data synchronization solutions, which have mostly been somewhat vendor-, application- or operating system specific. SyncML 1.0 specification was released on December 17, 2000, and 1.1 on February 26, 2002.

In computer and telecommunications networks, presence information is a status indicator that conveys ability and willingness of a potential communication partner—for example a user—to communicate. A user's client provides presence information via a network connection to a presence service, which is stored in what constitutes his personal availability record and can be made available for distribution to other users to convey their availability for communication. Presence information has wide application in many communication services and is one of the innovations driving the popularity of instant messaging or recent implementations of voice over IP clients.

An over-the-air (OTA) update, also known as over-the-air programming, is an update to an embedded system that is delivered through a wireless network. These embedded systems include mobile phones, tablets, set-top boxes, cars and telecommunications equipment.

OMA SpecWorks, previously the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) is a standards organization which develops open, international technical standards for the mobile phone industry. It is a nonprofit Non-governmental organization (NGO), not a formal government-sponsored standards organization as is the International Telecommunication Union (ITU): a forum for industry stakeholders to agree on common specifications for products and services.

Wireless Village is a set of specifications for mobile instant messaging and presence services. It is intended to be a standard for cellphones and mobile devices to use these services across platforms.

Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) is an authentication framework frequently used in network and internet connections. It is defined in RFC 3748, which made RFC 2284 obsolete, and is updated by RFC 5247. EAP is an authentication framework for providing the transport and usage of material and parameters generated by EAP methods. There are many methods defined by RFCs, and a number of vendor-specific methods and new proposals exist. EAP is not a wire protocol; instead it only defines the information from the interface and the formats. Each protocol that uses EAP defines a way to encapsulate by the user EAP messages within that protocol's messages.

OMA DRM is a digital rights management (DRM) system invented by the Open Mobile Alliance, whose members represent mobile phone manufacturers, mobile system manufacturers, mobile phone network operators, and information technology companies. DRM provides a way for content creators to set enforced limits on the use and duplication of their content by customers. The system is implemented on many recent phones. To date, two versions of OMA DRM have been released: OMA DRM 1.0 and OMA DRM 2.0.

The SyncML Initiative, Ltd. was a non-profit corporation formed by a group of companies who co-operated to produce an open standard for data synchronization and device management.

CANopen is a communication protocol and device profile specification for embedded systems used in automation. In terms of the OSI model, CANopen implements the layers above and including the network layer. The CANopen standard consists of an addressing scheme, several small communication protocols and an application layer defined by a device profile. The communication protocols have support for network management, device monitoring and communication between nodes, including a simple transport layer for message segmentation/desegmentation. The lower level protocol implementing the data link and physical layers is usually Controller Area Network (CAN), although devices using some other means of communication can also implement the CANopen device profile.

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network. A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that use the protocol. Introduced in 1999, WAP achieved some popularity in the early 2000s, but by the 2010s it had been largely superseded by more modern standards. Almost all modern handset internet browsers now fully support HTML, so they do not need to use WAP markup for web page compatibility, and therefore, most are no longer able to render and display pages written in WML, WAP's markup language.

Mobile device management (MDM) is the administration of mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers, and laptops. MDM is usually implemented with the use of a third-party product that has management features for particular vendors of mobile devices. Though closely related to Enterprise Mobility Management and Unified Endpoint Management, MDM differs slightly from both: unlike MDM, EMM includes mobile information management, BYOD, mobile application management and mobile content management, whereas UEM provides device management for endpoints like desktops, printers, IoT devices, and wearables as well.

Synchronica plc was a public listed software vendor which developed and marketed mobile messaging solutions for mobile network operators and mobile phone manufacturers. Its flagship product provided push email, instant messaging and social networking to a wide range of mobile phones, and was branded as Unity.

Exchange ActiveSync is a proprietary protocol designed for the synchronization of email, contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes from a messaging server to a smartphone or other mobile devices. The protocol also provides mobile device management and policy controls. The protocol is based on XML. The mobile device communicates over HTTP or HTTPS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GroupWise</span> Messaging and collaborative software platform

GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from Micro Focus that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, which is available for Windows,, and the server software, which is supported on Windows Server and Linux.

Port Control Protocol (PCP) is a computer networking protocol that allows hosts on IPv4 or IPv6 networks to control how the incoming IPv4 or IPv6 packets are translated and forwarded by an upstream router that performs network address translation (NAT) or packet filtering. By allowing hosts to create explicit port forwarding rules, handling of the network traffic can be easily configured to make hosts placed behind NATs or firewalls reachable from the rest of the Internet, which is a requirement for many applications.

OMA Lightweight M2M (LwM2M) is a protocol from the Open Mobile Alliance for machine to machine (M2M) or Internet of things (IoT) device management and service enablement. The LwM2M standard defines the application layer communication protocol between an LwM2M Server and an LwM2M Client which is located in an IoT device. It offers an approach for managing IoT devices and allows devices and systems from different vendors to co-exist in an IoT- ecosystem. LwM2M was originally built on Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) but later LwM2M versions also support additional transfer protocols.

References

  1. ↑ An OMA DM Based Framework for Updating Modulation Module for Mobile Devices: Computer Science & IT Book Chapter | IGI Global
  2. ↑ What Is Sprint OMADM & Its Specifications? - Internet Access Guide
  3. ↑ "OMA Device Management V1.2". Open Mobile Alliance. 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-01-15. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  4. ↑ "OMA Device Management V2.0". Open Mobile Alliance. 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-01-16. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  5. ↑ OMA DM‐based remote software fault management for mobile devices - Kang - 2009 - International Journal of Network Management - Wiley Online Library
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.