| Sun[tm] ONE Portal Server, Mobile Access 6.2 Administrator's Guide |
Chapter 1
OverviewSun™ ONE Portal Server, Mobile Access software extends the services and capabilities of Sun™ ONE Portal Server platform to mobile devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants. It also provides a framework for voice access. Mobile Access software enables portal site users to obtain the same content that they access using HTML browsers. It supports Sun™ ONE Portal Server, Secure Remote Access and uses Sun™ ONE Identity Server administration console.
The features of the Mobile Access product are integrated seamlessly into Portal Server software. If you know how to administer Portal Server software, understanding how to administer Mobile Access software will not be difficult.
This chapter provides an overview of the key features for Mobile Access software, as well as a description of Mobile Access functions added to Sun™ ONE Identity Server administration console and Portal Server Desktop, the primary end user interface. Topics provided include:
Mobile Access SoftwareUnderstanding the following Mobile Access software features and how they extend the functions of Portal Server software are useful:
The Portal Desktop
Once you install Mobile Access software, your portal site provides a mobile Portal Desktop and a voice Portal Desktop as well as a standard Portal Desktop. A wireless desktop dispatcher, which is a component of the Mobile Access software, controls them. The Portal Server desktop servlet forwards requests to the wireless desktop dispatcher.
The wireless desktop dispatcher uses profile configuration data to determine which Portal Desktop—standard, mobile, or voice—is the appropriate one to route user requests to. Input to the wireless desktop dispatcher are the HTTP request and the client type. Output is the HTTP response and the client-specific container.
Regardless of how the user access a portal site, the Portal Desktop is the user’s interface for the portal site. When a portal site user accesses a portal site with a mobile device, the mobile Portal Desktop is displayed. When a portal site user accesses a portal site with telephone, the voice Portal Desktop is displayed.
When you install Mobile Access software, these channels are available and visible by default on the mobile Portal Desktop:
For more details on the mobile Portal Desktop, see Chapter 4, "Managing the Mobile Portal Desktop." Instructions for providing online help for the mobile Portal Desktop appear in Chapter 6, "Deploying Online Help for the Mobile Portal Desktop."
Client Types
Mobile Access software supports virtually every mobile device available. It uses a client profile to identify each mobile device, or client. It assigns each client a unique identifier called client type, based on the device markup language the device’s browser uses.
These markup languages include:
- HDML (Handheld Device Markup Language)—Openwave’s proprietary language, for mobile devices that use Openwave browsers. It uses Openwave’s Handheld Device Transport Protocol (HDTP).
- cHTML (compact HTML)—a simpler version of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) to accommodate mobile devices.
- iHTML (inline HTML)—a server-side scripting language that extends HTML to allow customization of dynamic Web sites that interact with databases.
- JHTML (J-Sky Hypertext Markup Language)—Vodafone’s proprietary language for Japanese J-Sky devices.
- XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language)—a reformulation of HTML 4.0 that anyone can extend by adding new elements and defining new attributes.
- VoiceXML (Voice Extensible Markup Language)—a standard for creating audio dialogs in interactive voice response applications.
- WML (Wireless Markup Language)—based on XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and part of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).
Mobile Access software certifies WML support for the Nokia 6310i client and cHTML support for the Handspring Treo 180 client, although users can access portal content with any mobile device that uses one of these markup languages.
The Client Manager, which is part of the administration console of Identity Server, is used for managing client profiles. For details about mobile client type and device detection, see Chapter 2, "Managing Mobile Devices."
Authentication
Mobile Access software supports the authentication modules that Portal Server software provides, but it also allows you to:
For details on using these authentication modules, see Chapter 3, "Configuring Mobile Authentication."
Voice Access
Mobile Access software provides the framework for VoiceXML applications. To access voice functionality, you must configure a voice server to provide speech recognition, text-to-speech, and a VoiceXML browser.
For details about voice access, see Chapter 7, "Configuring Voice Access."
Channels, Containers, and Providers
Mobile Access software uses providers, channels, and containers to present content to the mobile Portal Desktop.
This topic provides information on:
Channels
Channels display content in the mobile Portal Desktop. A channel consists of the provider object, configuration settings, and data files (such as templates) required to support the channel.
Container Channels
A container, or container channel, is a channel that displays content in the mobile Portal Desktop by aggregating the content of other channels. Mobile Access software adds the following default container channels to those included with Portal Server software:
Providers
Providers determine what channels within the mobile Portal Desktop present to users. They adapt the interfaces of generic resources.
Provider content sources can include:
Providers, which are Java™ class files, deliver content in the proper format for each type of mobile device. As a mobile Portal Desktop is created, each provider is queried for the content of its associated channel.
When Mobile Access software is installed, the following new providers are added to the Portal Server software’s default channels list:
The following new providers are added to the default containers list are:
For details on using channels, containers, and providers to configure the mobile Portal Desktop, see Chapter 4, "Managing the Mobile Portal Desktop."
Rendering
Using a mobile device, portal site users can access the same content that they would access using any HTML browser. The process that enables this is a translation process called rendering. Rendering allows you to create content once and display it appropriately on a variety of unique mobile devices.
The mobile rendering component detects devices and formats output for display on mobile devices. It consists of four subcomponents:
- Client detection determines the capabilities and characters of each mobile device that is used to access the portal. To do this, it uses the composite capability and preference profiles (CC/PP) specification, UAProf, or preconfigured data.
- A rendering filter passes content to the rendering engine and passes translated device-specific content back to the client, using the content type value set in the JSP software template. It is a servlet filter that is applied to all authentication and application JSP software templates.
- The rendering engine converts AML, a device-independent markup language, to whatever device-specific markup language is appropriate for the client.
Mobile Access software supports both native and rendering channels and containers. Native channels are based on JavaServer Pages™ (JSP™) technology and templates that are specific to Nokia WML clients. Clients that support HTML, VoiceXML, and WML use templates for a native Portal Desktop.
Rendering channels also use JSP software. They enable a user to view a Portal Desktop that displays rendered content that is unique to a specific mobile device. This feature is made possible with the use of Abstract Markup Language (AML) templates that are passed through Mobile Access software’s rendering process. Clients that support cHTML, iHTML, JHTML, XHTML, and HDML require AML templates for a rendered Portal Desktop.
Mobile Applications
The Mobile Access software provides three default applications that users can access in the mobile Portal Desktop. These are:
These applications run on a back-end server with the mobile Portal Desktop acting as the user interface. Once the link to an application is established, the application runs outside the control of Portal Server software. When the user is finished using the application, the user can return to the mobile Portal Desktop to work with other providers.
The Administration ConsoleMobile Access software administrators use the Identity Server’s administration console to complete most ongoing, day-to-day administrative tasks.
This section provides the following details about using the Administration Console to manage mobile access to a portal site:
For details about the Sun ONE Identity Server administration console and how to manage the Sun ONE Identity Server, refer to the Sun™ ONE Identity Server 6.1 Administrator’s Guide.
Mobile Access Software Additions
When the Mobile Access software is installed, the features needed to manage mobile access to a portal site are added to the administration console. These features include:
- New default container channels are added to the Portal Desktop service.
- The Personal Notes channel is added to the default channels list.
- Conditional properties pages are added for each mobile device client type.
- New providers are added to the default channels list.
- New providers are added to the containers list.
- Additional markup language categories and properties definitions for mobile device client types are added to the Client Manager.
- A new service called Mobile Application Configuration is added to Identity Management Services for the mobile address book, mail and calendar applications.
- Service Configuration pages are added for the mobile address book, mail and calendar applications.
Typical Administrator Functions
Some of the functions that you can perform to manage a mobile and voice Portal Desktop with the administration console include:
- Creating channels that are dynamically rendered for a particular mobile device
- Editing the default Mobile Access container to support non-default containers and their own unique channel lists
- Editing device profiles through the Sun ONE Identity Server client detection interface
- Controlling how channels are loaded with the mobile Portal Desktop by modifying properties of the desktop container
- Enabling users to bypass password identification by editing the NoPassword authentication module
Logging In
The default URL for the administration console is:
http://server:port/amconsole
Administrators log on to the administration console as amadmin.
For more information on Portal Server software’s use of the administration console, see the Sun ONE™ Portal Server 6.2 Administration Guide.
The Standard Portal DesktopInstalling Mobile Access software changes the standard Portal Desktop, displayed when users log in to Portal Server software using an HTML-based browser. These changes allow users to use HTML browsers to manage their mobile device home pages themselves.
A Mobile Devices link is added to the standard Portal Desktop’s home page. Users can click this link to display the Mobile Devices page, which allows them to:
Logging In
The default URL allowing user access to the standard Portal Desktop is:
http://server:port/portal
For more information on the standard Portal Desktop, see the Sun ONE™ Portal Server 6.2 Administration Guide.
