Sybase Afaria

Sybase Afaria Specifications

AFARIA CAPABILITIES
Afaria has been built from the ground up to address the unique challenges of frontline environments. It provides comprehensive management capabilities to proactively manage and secure all the devices, applications, data and communications critical to frontline success, regardless of the bandwidth available. This improves the reliability and usability of mobile devices, thereby increasing user adoption.
Afaria is an enterprise-grade, highly scalable solution with a central web-based console that allows IT the ability to control a host of key functions from a standard browser.With Afaria’s ability to tie into enterprise directories, these functions provide everything necessary to extend an organization’s management and security capabilities to any device, in any location.
Afaria also provides enterprise-ready security features to protect mobile data and devices. When these security capabilities are coupled with Afaria’s robust management capabilities, IT is able to increase the efficiency of managing any mobile deployment while ensuring security policies are enforced and devices remain updated. This combined management and security solution provides the best protection against the mobile security threats and compliance issues that are so prevalent today.
Afaria is a key component of the Information Anywhere Suite, which addresses converging IT requirements by offering a secure and scalable mobile software platform.

SECURITY
Afaria uniquely combines security and systems management functionality from a single console. It enables IT to manage security requirements centrally, such as enforcing power-on password, updating signature files and antivirus engines, and managing the configuration of the device. Afaria also increases the efficiency of updating and enforcing management and security policies by enabling all necessary tasks to occur during a single connection.

Over-The-Air Data Encryption

• Over-the-air data exchange is fully encrypted using SSL encryption scheme

Patch Management

• Administrators determine which Microsoft security patches need to be
  deployed to individual laptops
• Patches are automatically downloaded and then deployed
  appropriately on an individual or group basis
• Detailed logs and reports show the current patch levels, and the
  protection levels employed

Security Management

• Fully integrated into the Afaria console
• Full disk encryption for Windows PCs
• 128-bit data encryption protects data both on the device and over-the-air
  during transfer
• Centrally defined security policies enforce power-on password and data
  on-device control
• Detects abnormal device usage which may indicate a lost or stolen device and will lock down device
• Password recovery accessible from the Afaria client view

Data Backup

• FIPS 140-2 compliant modules on handhelds

Secure Wireless Email

• Full interoperability with iAnywhere OneBridge and Microsoft Exchange wireless email solutions
• Protects sensitive corporate email and company contact information
• Allows devices to receive email even when in a locked state
• Enforces mandatory encryption of sensitive information

MANAGEMENT

Specifically designed to address frontline management needs, Afaria provides IT a set of capabilities that allow applications to be centrally distributed, installed and maintained. Afaria can also automatically manage routine system management tasks, while supporting all devices an enterprise is likely to need, including laptops, handheld devices such as Windows Mobile devices, Palm, smart phones and many other mobile devices.
Data and Content Management
Afaria updates file-based information from any source and format, including HTML, database files, documents and other electronic content.

Application Services

• Afaria adds significant management capabilities to third party or custom applications by enabling updates to be delivered using wireless networks
• Both Afaria server and client functionality can be fully extended and integrated into applications via published APIs

Document and Content Distribution

• Document files are securely delivered to frontline users using a forced or subscription model, and out of date documents are automatically replaced
• Document owners have control over content, enabling easy addition, deletion and updating

Process Automation

With Afaria, important tasks can be personalized and automated to make them faster and easier for the IT administrator.

• Wizard-driven point-and-click scripting allows infinitely customizable activities on server or client systems
• File transfer or process sessions can be scheduled or initiated manually (by server or client)
• Scripting delivers numerous possibilities: file transfers, hard disk checks and changes, configuration changes, and even logic processes for complex tasking (e.g., ‘if-then’ clauses)

Connection Management
Afaria uses an intelligent architecture design which optimizes the ability to make the appropriate decisions about which tools to utilize when managing a frontline deployment. Additionally, connection management functions are fully deployable over-the-air, eliminating the need for remote devices to be manually configured by IT.

Scheduling and Prioritization

• System administrators control the content, timing, parameters and method of communication
• Comprehensive scheduling enables completion of work at the most efficient times
• Prioritization of different tasks ensures quick completion of the most important activities
• Tuning of the communications protocol and optimization of package profiles maximizes efficiency from different network types

Device Monitoring

• Afaria reacts to changes in the state of a device and can trigger connections, logging or local processes when key characteristics change
• Backup for a device when the battery level drops below a critical level
• Monitor and/or enforce application installation and usage policies through logging and reporting capabilities
• Log when confidential files on mobile devices are written to external cards or sent to other devices

Bandwidth Optimization

• Comprehensive bandwidth management supports applications across all network types
• On-the-fly data compression, checkpoint restart, file segmentation, file-level and byte-level differencing minimize data volume for both large and small transfers
• Dynamic bandwidth throttling releases bandwidth to other applications when activity levels increase and then reclaims bandwidth when other applications grow idle

System Management Extensions
Within the confines of headquarters, systems management is a routine task. However this task becomes complicated with remote devices, as these devices are not always connected to the network. Afaria simplifies these routine management tasks by allowing automatically scheduled polling of devices to ensure devices are compliant with corporate policies.

Configuration Management

• Central control of the majority of frontline device configurations
• Administrators maintain desired software and hardware settings across groups of systems including device identification, network settings, connection profiles, regional settings and alerts
• Settings are checked against centrally defined configurations and reset when appropriate

Support for Microsoft SMS

Afaria is Microsoft .Net-based and can be integrated with SMS 2003 to expand the range of devices that can be managed from the SMS console. Afaria can be used to manage all the latest Windows platforms, as well as extend management of other existing mobile operating systems:

• RIM BlackBerry devices
• Palm handhelds
• Symbian smart phones
• Windows Mobile-based smart phones

Software and Inventory Management

Afaria provides visibility into frontline devices so it is known exactly what devices are deployed, where they are located and what software is installed. This provides IT the ability to manage and control remote device inventory and software distribution.

Inventory and Asset Control

• Administrators can perform comprehensive inventory scans of hardware and software
• Changes to hardware and software are automatically detected, generating alerts for review and action
• Help desk personnel have access to asset information for rapid issue resolution

Remote Control

• Systems are remotely controlled for fault diagnosis and correction

License Control

• Administrators track the installation and usage of software licenses against those purchased
• Detailed reports include information about the last time an application was accessed

Software Distribution

• Afaria enables the electronic distribution, installation and maintenance of applications
• Central administration controls software installations, including version management, rollback and criteria checking
• Afaria enables automatic software maintenance and ‘snapshot’ installation utilizing efficient byte-level differencing

FRONTLINE DEVICE SUPPORT
Afaria supports a wide variety of client types that can be managed from a single web based console.

• Support for Win32 laptops, Windows Pocket PC and smart phones devices, Palm handhelds, Symbian smart phones, RIM BlackBerry devices and many point-of-sale systems

ARCHITECTURE
The Afaria server delivers enterprise performance with minimal maintenance and cost, while seamlessly integrating into the IT infrastructure.

• Seamless integration with SQL Anywhere database from iAnywhere, providing the convenience of a singlevendor solution
• Provides integration with key directory technologies, such as NT and LDAP-compatible directories
• Will run on Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle
• A web based console supports Microsoft .NET technologies, allowing system administration and control of business and IT information
• A broad range of connectivity options are supported, such as TCP/IP over wireless or wired connections, dial-up remote access connections (RAS),WAN, and high-speed LAN connections
• Also supported are HTTP and HTTPS to allow users to connect over the Internet and have a secure access point through corporate firewalls
• The Afaria server runs on Windows Server 2003 Standard or Enterprise with service pack, or Windows 2000 Server or Advanced Server with

Service Pack 4 
Afaria and OneBridge are key components of the Information Anywhere Suite, a secure, scalable mobile software platform that addresses the converging IT requirements of enterprises today. By combining email/messaging, mobile device management, enterprise-to-edge security and back-office application extension capabilities, Information Anywhere enables organizations to empower employees to do the work they need to do anywhere, at anytime, on any device.