Checklist: Mobile/wireless deployment issues

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Checklist: Mobile/wireless deployment issues

Jack Vaughan and Peter Bochner

Wireless application integration has pitfalls, but they can be avoided. Knowing what to expect ahead of time will help a wireless roll-out go smoothly. This checklist provides a step-by-step approach that will help you sidestep the potential problems, while highlighting the best practices for a successful deployment.

For more in-depth information, see SearchDomino.com's Wireless Integration Development Learning Guide.

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 Quick Checklist: Deploying wireless apps
Review business requirements for wireless deployment:
Project scope is always a concern. You will have to make early decisions about how widely your wireless application should be deployed, how many users will be covered, and how deep that coverage should be.
Sales force access to information, reduced data input or similar objectives should be articulated at the outset. When user wish lists expand, IT costs can go up. If business benefits are not enumerated or of corporate management does not sign off on them, the development manager may take the fall.
Evaluate device options:
Corporate standards for portable devices are probably not in place in your organization. If you can dictate which wireless devices are used in your organization, your path to development will be quite different than if you have to support any device that an end user comes up with.
Factors to consider in any case include availability of device, screen size, device memory and operating system employed. Do the devices adequately display corporate content without requiring application overhaul?
 
Consider integration issues:
Which changes (if any) will the wireless application platform you choose necessitate being made to your existing messaging software infrastructure?
Sometimes the benefits of a mobile solution may outweigh maintaining the status quo; other times, such a swap-out may not be worth the labor-intensive effort.
Clearly, decisions you make when considering business requirements or evaluating device options can significantly influence your approach to the critical integration analysis. Even with asynchronous approaches, the frequency and breadth of syncs to end users depends on your ability to use infrastructure bandwidth.
Develop for scalability, manageability:
Most Domino shops are larger operations, so their wireless deployments will be larger too. Still, start small. Don't give out PDAs company-wide until you've done a pilot among a close group of users. Some applications may run slower on mobile devices. Administrators may need to keep applications trim so that page loads and transmission times will be acceptable. In addition, wireless devices may cause increases in network traffic.
Linking a wireless device to a desktop environment is fine for smaller enterprises, but a larger operation will probably want to connect mobile devices to a database server. The main advantages to connecting to the server are management and security.
Bake-in security:
Security falls into two categories: over the air and on the device. Administrators will have to manage the network's wireless security features. Password authentication can be made mandatory. Local encryption of all data, if desired, can also be enforced through IT policy.
Administrators may also want to enforce access rights, which can be as fine-grained as permission for an individual user to execute a specific business process, synchronization or message defined in the mobile application. An admin needs to be able to lock or delete information from a lost or stolen device, then restore the information if need be.

For more in-depth information, see SearchDomino.com's Wireless Integration Development Learning Guide.

 


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