Best practices for mobile device manager

The mobile device manager is a computer (virtual or physical) that is used for managing enrollment, notifications, and other communication with the managed mobile devices. For seamless communication between the managed mobile devices and BMC Client Management, the IT administrators should consider the following recommended best practices when defining and configuring mobile device manager.

Prerequisites

The following are the prerequisites for the mobile device manager:

• Must be connected to internet uninterruptedly.
• Must be able to handle both the outbound and inbound requests.

Hardware recommendations

BMC recommends using only one mobile device manager. However, the number of mobile device managers you may need depend on the following factors:

• Number of mobile devices to be managed
• Specifications of the mobile device manager

The following test results should help the IT administrators to make an informed decision about the hardware configuration and number of mobile device managers required.

Test description

The test included sending six different mobile commands to the managed mobile devices. The mobile devices sent the inventory information back to the mobile device manager using web services.

Test hardware specifications

Test criteria and results

Processing time for 30,000 mobile devices with one mobile device manager on Windows server:

Processing time for 30,000 mobile devices with one mobile device manager on Linux server:

Processing time for 30,000 mobile devices with three mobile device managers on Windows Server via load balancer:

Processing time for 30,000 mobile devices with three mobile device managers on Linux server via load balancer:

Setting up two or more mobile device managers without load balancing

The following guidelines should be considered if you are defining and configuring more than one mobile device manager without using a load balancer. The figure 1 indicates the general architecture of two or more independent mobile device manager without load balancer:

Fig 1: Multiple mobile device managers without load balancer

• The mobile device manager 1 is independent from the mobile device manager 2.
• The mobile device manager 1 and the mobile device manager 2 have their own enrollment URLs. The mobile devices enrolled on the mobile device manager 1 communicates with the mobile device manager 1 only. 
• The mobile devices enrolled on the mobile device manager 1 cannot communicate with the mobile device managers 2 even if the mobile device manager 1 is down (not available).
• If a mobile device enrolled with mobile device manager 1 needs to be managed by mobile device manager 2, the mobile device first needs to cancel enrollment with the mobile device manager 1 and then enroll again using the enrollment URL of the mobile device manager 2.

Setting up two or more mobile device managers with load balancer

The following guidelines should be considered if you are defining and configuring more than one mobile device manager with a load balancer. The figure 2 indicates the general architecture of two or more mobile device manager with a load balancer:

Fig 2: Multiple mobile device managers with a load balancer

• The load balancer shares load with all the mobile device managers.
• There is only one enrollment URL, using which all mobile devices are enrolled.
• A mobile device connects with the load balancer and the load balancer connects the mobile device to an available mobile device manager.
• If one mobile manager is down (not available), the load balancer automatically transfer the mobile device connection to other available mobile device manager.
• IT administrator can add or remove mobile device managers as required.