Mobile Device Management(MDM)

Now a days employees are bringing their own devices to work (BYOD) and using these devices to share data  within the office campus, so it is difficult for IT department to monitor and control the devices. In this case Mobile Device Management (MDM) protocol provides a way for system administrators to send device management commands to managed mobile devices. By using the MDM service, an IT administrator can inspect, install, or remove profiles; monitor device status e.g. battery status etc. ;remove passcodes; and begin secure erase on a managed device. 

In iOS 4 and above MDM inbuilt client is already there, so for iOS devices there is no need to develop any application to support MDM. But for Android devices to support MDM, MDM client application needs to be installed.

iOS MDM

The MDM protocol is built on top of HTTP, transport layer security (TLS), and push notifications. The related MDM check-in protocol provides a way to delegate the initial registration process to a separate server.

MDM uses the Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) to deliver a “wake up” message to a managed device. The device then connects to a predetermined web service to retrieve commands and return results.

To provide MDM service, IT department needs to deploy an HTTPS server to act as an MDM server, then distribute profiles containing the MDM payload to managed devices.