Hi all - Firstly, thanks for the quick responses and positive comments. Far too many of you are obviously working over the holidays too!
Some interesting feedback has been received, which I'll summarise and comment on a bit here from time-to-time. -- A few concerns have been raised so far about security/trust aspect -- perhaps more than I had expected. I guess you guys all trust the Mobile/SMS Operators out there, more than other companies! I'll definitely have to explore this more. A few thoughts are below: ------------------------ APPLICATION COMMUNICATION ------------------------ - This would be direct between the iPhone Client and your InterMapper Server installation (Web Server); so over SSL if you've enabled that. This should keep everyone happy about security/confidentiality of data - but will only help when the application is running. - You'll obviously need to expose your IM Web Server to your cellular provider or use a VPN, etc. - I do hope to include some Application Statistics gathering code for early releases, to help me better understand users' needs and usage patterns; along with some feedback mechanisms. This would be optionally enabled - and I will propose a data set later and see what you guys think. ------------------------ PUSH NOTIFICATIONS ------------------------ - This primarily is where the data sensitivity/trust issues seem to lie. Push would be optional, but is where some major benefits would be realised. Otherwise you just have a 'better web interface', which while still useful, could be implemented more effectively by Dartware. - Dartware has offered to host a server (Thanks!), which may be acceptable to some as a 'trusted intermediary'. I'll liaise with them more once I get to the 'usable product' stage. - The "first release" is likely to be run on my own servers, so that it's easy to deal with updates, etc -- but I had always intended to have a couple, ideally in different geographic locations. The latency to the server won't matter too much - as we're dependent on Apple's servers anyway; but a server located near them may increase reliability. - The privacy concern I think is around revealing network topography/etc - so there are a few ways this could be dealt with. 1) The "message contents" sent to the Push server would be customisable by users (similar to the way you customise SMS/Email now). To drive the UI shortcuts (e.g. Select on startup the device that's down), I hope to utilise certain values in this message -- so had anticipated the Device name/etc being required. However - it may be possible to provide different message templates -- which provide differing functionality. E.g. One that only passes '# Devices Up, # Down, etc' -- and provides badge updates on that basis, nothing more. And another that says 'edge01.router down, last down...' for those who trust the gateway more. 2) It may be possible to encode the push message with info about the device, that would only be known to the application, not the Push Server. The DeviceID value would make sense - but this isn't available in the Notifications Template editor (to my knowledge) ... Maybe something Dartware can help out with once I can show them a product. Either way, this wouldn't make for very sexy "messages"... E.g. "Device g4cbA26aa-r1 is DOWN" :) Definitely a few options here. - Regarding "push gateway" at each customer site -- this is tough. iPhone applications are meant to be "download and go", and so having more complex installation requirements at each clients is something I'm hoping to avoid. This may be needed; but I'll be trying to avoid this for the first releases. ------------------------ SECURITY ------------------------ - For speed, I probably was going to cache data locally. - I wasn't envisaging encrypting any of the information on the device. Remote Wipe capabilities and passcodes should take care of this (the filesystem is encrypted from the 3GS upwards), but maybe you all don't have this view. Comments? ------------------------ SPECIFIC COMMENTS ------------------------ - Bernd and Jakob: I intend to embed the Device Info web page (the 'yellow panel') within the UI, as this includes information like 'Recent Outages' which I don't think I can get access to, without talking to your IMDC database. I presume this covers the info you're after. I'll probably setup a website for the project in the coming weeks, and post a few screenshots to solicit feedback on. Thanks again for the feedback so far, and offers of beta testing. Regards, Mark Mackay. ____________________________________________________________________ List archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/intermapper-talk%40list.dartware.com/ To unsubscribe: send email to: [email protected]
