BlackBerry Internet Service vs. BlackBerry Enterprise Server
While the BlackBerry solution is now a household name, what is less well known is that there are two main BlackBerry smartphone mobile connectivity options, and they are quite different. The first is the BlackBerry Internet Service, in which your mobile carrier acts as a liaison between your email and your BlackBerry smartphone.
The BlackBerry Internet Service offering is a standalone service, a BlackBerry Enterprise Server integrates with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook. With a BlackBerry Enterprise Server, the data from these platforms is accessible directly from the BlackBerry smartphone, which enables near real-time mobile access to corporate data.
If you’re using a BlackBerry smartphone solely for personal email, then a BlackBerry Internet Service account may be all you need. But if you’re a business user and are only using BlackBerry Internet Service, you’re leaving lots of important functionality unused.
Push vs. Pull
In the “pull” environment of BlackBerry Internet Service, your mobile carrier‘s BlackBerry Internet server periodically checks your mail server for new messages, pulls them up to the BlackBerry Internet Service using a standard POP3 connection, and then pushes the messages out wirelessly to your BlackBerry smartphone. While you can schedule this to happen at regular intervals, the extra step of having to retrieve (pull) the messages inevitably slows the process down, so real-time email just isn’t possible. All service providers have a standard 15-20 minute delay in transmitting these messages. This is an intentional design limitation on polling email servers for new messages. The same is true with sending emails from your BlackBerry smartphone. While your device pushes any emails you send to your mobile carrier’s BlackBerry Internet Service servers, in virtual real time, you will have to wait until the next time the BlackBerry Internet Service connects with your mail server for each message to actually be sent out over the Internet to its recipient.
In a “push” environment, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server is integrated with your company’s email server (assuming you have one) and pushes your email out to your BlackBerry smartphone — almost instantly and automatically.
It’s so fast that sometimes messages will show up on your BlackBerry smartphone before they show up on your desktop. If you’ve ever received someone’s reply to a group email before you received the original message, there’s a good chance there’s a “sent from my wireless BlackBerry smartphone” beneath that person’s signature.
Security
Security is a significant area of concern for anyone in charge of IT for any size business, with numerous research studies indicating that threats to corporate email networks—from all angles—are on the rise. The U.S. Treasury Department casino internetowe has reported that the cybercrime industry has passed illegal drug sales in annual proceeds, and security vendors Websense and Postini claim that up to 90 percent of all email is now spam, the gateway of choice for cyber bandits looking to steal sensitive personal and corporate data casino online polska from unsuspecting recipient
BlackBerry Enterprise Server has critical security features of that improve the security of mobile access to email and other data and applications. The first is end-to-end encryption of email messages—from the BlackBerry Enterprise Server to the BlackBerry smartphone and back.
A second key security feature of a BlackBerry Enterprise Server is what’s called “remote lock and wipe,” which allows the administrator to easily erase the contents of any BlackBerry smartphone on the network and also lock it down so no one can use it.
In September of 2009, Credant Technologies reported that in NYC more than 31K mobile phones were left in Taxi cabs in a period of 6 months. With the steady growth of mobile devices year after year, it’s a safe bet that these figures are signicant on a National level.
Blackberry Enterprise Server
Handheld data utomatically syncs back and forth, which means no USB connections, no cradles, no manual entry in multiple locations.
* Remote lock and wipe.
* Real-Time Synchronization.
* Calendar, Address Book, Tasks, MemoPad
* Bi-Directional Synchronization.
* Real-time Synchronization.
* Fastest and most secure.
* Some Providers have an additional cost associated with plans that are Blackberry Server capable.
Blackberry Internet Service
* Ideal for personal email service that is less critical.
* Only Email can by synched. (No Calendars, Contacts, Tasks etc..)
* Reconciliation is one-way. (No Sent copiesd, Not marked as Read etc..)
* Sycing can break and require troubleshooting/provider calls.
Conclusion
The simplest way to explain the difference between a BlackBerry Internet Service and a BlackBerry Enterprise Server is that a BlackBerry Internet Service solution extends personal email to your BlackBerry smartphone. It works great, and if that’s all you need, then that’s all you should buy. A BlackBerry Enterprise Server solution, on the other hand, is an extension of all the features of your corporate messaging platform to your BlackBerry smartphone, which makes it a powerful tool for boosting individual productivity, as well as for fostering collaboration among employees—whether they are down the hall or across the world.
If you have any questions about Blackberry Enterprise Server, please contact us today!
-Contributed by Matthew Chambers – Security Engineer at Corporate IT Solutions