OMA Device Management is a device management protocol specified by the

Open Mobile Alliance 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 govern ...

(OMA) Device Management (DM) Working Group and the Data Synchronization (DS) Working Group. The current approved specification of OMA DM is version 1.2.1, the latest modifications to this version released in June 2008. The candidate release 2.0 was scheduled to be finalized in September 2013.

Overview

OMA DM specification is designed for management of

mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physica ...

s such as

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

s, PDAs, and tablet computers.OMA DM‐based remote software fault management for mobile devices - Kang - 2009 - International Journal of Network Management - Wiley Online Library
/ref> Device management is intended to support the following uses: *

Provisioning In telecommunication, provisioning involves the process of preparing and equipping a network to allow it to provide new services to its users. In National Security/Emergency Preparedness telecommunications services, ''"provisioning"'' equates to ...

– Configuration of the device (including first time use), enabling and disabling features * Device Configuration – Allow changes to settings and parameters of the device * Software Upgrades – Provide for new software and/or bug fixes to be loaded on the device, including applications and system software *

Fault Management In network management, fault management is the set of functions that detect, isolate, and correct malfunctions in a telecommunications network, compensate for environmental changes, and include maintaining and examining error logs, accepting and ...

– Report errors from the device, query about status of device 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: * small footprint devices, where memory and storage space may be limited * constraint on bandwidth of communication, such as in wireless connectivity * tight security, as the devices are vulnerable to software attacks; authentication and challenges are made part of the specifications

Technical description

OMA DM was originally developed by

The SyncML Initiative 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. Prior to SyncML, data synchronization and device management had ...

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 Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

for data exchange, more specifically the sub-set defined by

SyncML SyncML (Synchronization Markup Language) 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 o ...

. 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: * physically over both wireline (

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' (''data terminal equipment'') such ...

) and wireless media (

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communicatio ...

IrDA The Infrared Data Association (IrDA) is an industry-driven interest group that was founded in 1994 by around 50 companies. IrDA provides specifications for a complete set of protocols for wireless infrared communications, and the name "IrDA" also ...

, or

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

) * transport layers implemented over any of WSP ( WAP),

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide We ...

, or

OBEX OBEX (abbreviation of OBject EXchange, also termed IrOBEX) 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 S ...

or similar transports 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 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 achieve ...

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.

References

External links

JSR 233: J2EE Mobile Device Management and Monitoring Specification

OMA Device Management Working Group

Open Source OMA-DM simulator - Eclipse Koneki project
{{Open Mobile Alliance standards Open Mobile Alliance standards Open standards Computer hardware standards XML-based standards Networking standards

Overview

Technical description

See also

References

External links