In this chapter, we are going to have a look at MDS (Mobile Data Service) runtime applications. These are custom applications that are developed for your organizational needs. MDS runtime applications are created using BlackBerry MDS Studio or Microsoft Visual Studio — a BlackBerry plugin. In general, these applications are form-based applications that users can use on their device to access databases or web services based inside your organization's firewall — the corporate LAN.
For the purpose of this chapter you can download a sample MDS application from the BlackBerry website under the development section, current link is: http://us.blackberry.com/developers/javaappdev/devtools.jsp. This application is an Expenses Tracker, which an employee can populate in real time from his device as business expenses occur during a trip. Once the trip is complete, the application e-mails your finance department and attaches an Excel spreadsheet outlining the employee's business trip expenses. This chapter will show you how to distribute an MDS application to a BlackBerry device.
The MDS has two component services:
- MDS Connection Service: This service provides access to content on the Internet, intranet, and access to the organization's application servers
- MDS Integration Service: This service facilitates installation and management of applications and allows access to the server system in your corporate LAN via database connections or web services
Firstly, we need to set up our MDS environment. This includes the following:
- Ensure that the BlackBerry MDS integration Service is installed and running on our BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
- This service should have been selected during the initial installation of the BES; if it was not selected we can run the setup and install the MDS services. If the MDS service is already installed, you will see the services running in the Windows server.
- Send the BlackBerry MDS Runtime platform to devices in our BlackBerry domain.
- This can be achieved by using Software Configuration policies, as shown next:
- Publish the BlackBerry MDS application
- This will be done using the MDS console that is installed during the installation of MDS services
- Configure our IT policy and any application control policies for the MDS application
- Using IT policies and application policies we can lock down our MDS application
- Install the MDS application on the devices
- Using the MDS console and the application repository for MDS applications, we can deploy and install the MDS applications on the devices
Each of the preceding sections will now be looked at in greater detail.