AIX Wireless System Manager---Wsma

In today's 7x24-hour business environment, the boundaries between work and life have become increasingly blurred. Pervasive computing allows people to engage in business activities, communicate with colleagues, and receive information----whether in the office or elsewhere. Wsma has brought mobile server management to a new world by using wireless devices. Using standard WAP phones, system administrators can log on to AIX systems by using AIX user authentication, monitor the system, and perform some key business management functions. The use of "push" technology implemented by the condition of the server alarm function to the IT staff from the console liberation. It can also send short messages to the administrator's phone to inform him that predefined conditions have been triggered.

Since the 1994 Sprint launched the Personal Communications System (PCS)---telephone service, the wireless industry in North America is almost ubiquitous in the corporate and consumer markets. Despite some lag in Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the operating income of wireless data communication is expected to grow faster than the operating income of wireless voice communications. Mobile Internet is a network of wireless interconnections that require standards-based wireless protocols and data representations. According to Dataquest's forecast, the most common wireless protocol is WAP, by 2002, WAP-based mobile phone sales will reach 250 million units. In fact, Gartner Group predicts that by 2004, 95% of new handsets will be able to use WAP. WAP support is not limited to wireless phones. Currently there are many WAP browsers available on the market, most notably those based on Palm OS. There are also wireless embedded devices based on Linux, which are popular in some places as universal standard WAP browsers. With the commitment to 3G high-speed delivery services, the speed will be increased to 1 million bits per second of information, you can imagine in the future, mobile users can connect to all the mobile devices need to connect! There will be open standards-based security measures on the wireless network to ensure the completion of trusted, confidential End-to-end e-business. High-speed, reliable mobile networks enable mobile users or IT personnel to use a wireless architecture to manage their applications and systems. Aix Wireless System Manager (Wireless System Manager for AIX [Wsma]) is a wireless system service that allows for secure and confidential management of system resources such as CPUs, disks, devices, and applications.

Relationships with other types of system management

Traditional enterprise management software, such as Tivoli Tme, manages resources from a single console. monitoring, reporting, and executing some of the actions on the managed resources are performed by the operator at a central location. In enterprise management systems, servers, networks, and clients (including wireless devices) are managed tools that are collected, sorted, and viewed. If a network problem arises and the alarm is reported, the operator is to be out of the field to correct the problem. Wsma only helps manage one server at a time. It assumes that the wireless network or device itself, if it fails, still needs to be handled with existing network and enterprise management tools.

Certification, confidentiality, authorization

The WSMA and IBM Everyplace Wireless Gateway provide the following security features on the network: identification-how users are identified and authenticated confidentially-through Wireless transport Layer Security (WTLS) and secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol Encrypt data authorization-allows its corresponding action based on user permissions This secure bridge provides a great deal of flexibility between the WAP-based client and the HTTP server by decrypting and encrypting data between the WTLS and SSL channels. But it also shows a potentially sensitive data exposure problem: Data sent to the data gateway itself is a security risk! Because the encryption and decryption of the data is done on the data gateway. Placing a wireless gateway in a protected location during overall network security planning and configuration is an important consideration.

WSMA components

WSMA provides management of servers and applications through the use of secure WAP devices. It uses a standard set of software components and wireless devices: a WAP browser that must be loaded into a cell phone or PDA on a network in a wireless Gateway Wsma device, which serves as a standard HTTP The security of the connection layer that the server plug-in runs on the managed server is access to the enterprise's intranet by using remote Access Service (RAS) of the PPP protocol. Refer to the diagram below to understand the different protocols, security components, relationships between WAP phones, gateways, and managed servers in the wireless network.

Wireless Gateway

A wireless gateway is a required component for communication between WAP clients and Wsma. It listens for data and messages from the client and translates the Wireless session Protocol (WSP) request to the HTTP request, which is then forwarded to the HTTP server. The reply header is converted from HTTP to the WSP reply header, the content is converted from WML and/or wmlscript to binary XML (wbxml), and then forwarded to the WAP client. IBM everyplace Wireless Gateway (EWG) is a robust, extensible WAP gateway that can be configured on an enterprise's network.

The resources managed by WSMA are grouped into three categories: view-list common system information such as Vital Product data, error log, survey-determine the problem by looking at the various system resource conditions, and fix-manage systems and applications by starting/stopping system resources and applications. Because of the limited screen size of WAP handsets, the user interface must be concise and centralized. With such a consciousness, for different categories and actions performed by Wsma refer to the following table: System Information vpd/error: Show or clear system error log ram/cpu/disk: CPU usage, list total and free space for the disk, list total and free page swap space issues determine Ping host: Ping host process management with host name or IP address: By owner, all CPUs or current CPU management process Device Management: List online or offline device management tasks send wall commands to users: Send standard or customized information to all users in the login; file/File System/ Page swap space: Purge or extend file system, Mount/unmount file system, view page swap space; process/SUBSYSTEM: List or kill process, List/query/start/stop/refresh/trace subsystem, start/stop/refresh/trace Sub server application/print: Start/stop Application; Stop/cancel print job; reboot/shutdown: Reboot/Stop System. An administrator knows that a specific action needs to be done by predefined notifications or by viewing any exception conditions, and corrects the system by anticipating a scenario (such as a planned outage). The purpose of WSMA is not to replace the system Management console, but to help deal with critical systems and applications in the event of an error. If necessary, complete error diagnosis and correction can be performed later on the server.

WSMA system Working Process The following scenario describes the action in Wsma Order: 1. The administrator configures what conditions need to be notified, and enter the phone number or SMS address of the notification destination 2. A short message appears on the administrator's phone, indicating that a certain condition is noteworthy. 3. The administrator uses WAP devices and passwords to log on to the server, which is probably the same as the device receiving SMS messages. 4. The administrator will see the main menu, and he browses and executes an action to correct the error associated with the received message. If the information is a notification of an action, such as a job is completed, the administrator can check the status of the job. 5. The administrator exits, interrupts the session, hangs up the handset. Sending notifications to server management gives the administrator the ability to respond in real time. The connection is secure and is anytime, anywhere. The reliance on public carriers is small, and the standard security protocols that are available today guarantee secure transactions and operations, so it is not only possible but also realistic to manage servers through wireless devices.