System and method for monitoring and maintaining a wireless device
View Patent ↗A system is disclosed in which a wireless device is monitored and maintained over a network. One embodiment of the system comprises a wireless device including: a service to maintain data objects, provide messaging capability, and provide data access capability on behalf of a user of the wireless device; and a rules engine communicatively coupled to the service to execute a set of rules transmitted to the wireless device from a server, the set of rules to instruct the rules engine to gather information related to the wireless device and to take action on the wireless device based on the gathered information.
1. A user terminal comprising a wireless device, the wireless device comprising:
an application configured to receive a set of rules from a server, the set of rules being associated with data identifying their origin; and
a rules engine communicatively coupled to the application to execute the set of rules received from the server, wherein the rules engine is configured to
verify authenticity of the set of rules by verifying the origin associated with the rules, and, in dependence thereon,
selectively execute the set of rules in order to gather information related to the wireless device and to take action based on the gathered information.
2. The user terminal of claim 1 , wherein the set of rules comprises a plurality of rules and the information related to the wireless device gathered by the rules engine includes at least one of: applications installed on the device, applications not installed on the device, battery status, operating system characteristics, peripherals installed on the device, operating system version, memory characteristics, application licensing restrictions and expiry, code signature and certification validation of applications, application usage patterns, device hardware characteristics, device operating characteristics, peripherals on the device, and SMS functionality.
3. The user terminal of claim 1 , wherein to take action comprises performing at least one of: warning a user of the wireless device, locking the wireless device, phoning a set of numbers, initiating software downloads and upgrades, alerting a corporate network monitor of the device, shutting down one or more applications on the device, shutting down the wireless device, modifying critical data on the wireless device, and erasing critical data on the wireless device.
4. The user terminal of claim 1 , wherein the set of rules is defined in a rule definition file comprising at least one of: an extensible markup language (XML) file, native script, executable module.
5. The user terminal of claim 4 , wherein the set of rules is accessed through a uniform resource language (URL) pointer to a resource containing the set of rules.
6. The user terminal of claim 1 , wherein the monitoring time interval is based on predetermined information gathering trigger events stored by the rules engine.
7. The user terminal of claim 1 , wherein the application receives the set of rules from the server and transmits the set of rules to the rules engine for execution.
8. A system for monitoring and maintaining a wireless device, the system comprising:
a server communicatively coupled to a network; and
an administrator module coupled to the server configured to transmit a set of rules to a wireless device, the set of rules being associated with data identifying their origin and being for use by the wireless device in verifying authenticity of the set of rules by verifying the origin associated with the rules, and, in dependence thereon, selectively execute the set of rules in order to gather information related to the wireless device,
wherein the server is configured to receive data indicative of the gathered information and to send data to the wireless device for use in configuring the wireless device.
9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the administrator module further comprises a corporate policy editor to update the set of rules according to one or more corporate policies.
10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the one or more corporate policies includes at least one of: allowing pre-determined applications to exists on the wireless device, maintaining pre-determined settings in the applications on the wireless device, ensuring applications on the wireless device are a predetermined version, and preventing pre-determined peripherals from associating with the wireless device.
11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the administrator module is configured to synchronize one or more updates to the set of rules with a set of rules on the wireless device.
12. A method of maintaining a wireless device, the wireless device comprising a rules engine, the method comprising:
receiving a set of rules at the wireless device from a remote server, the set of rules being associated with data identifying their origin;
verifying authenticity of the set of rules by verifying the origin associated with the rules, and, in dependence thereon,
causing the rules engine to
execute the set of rules to gather information related to the wireless device; and
perform an action on the wireless device based on the gathered information.
13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the set of rules comprises a plurality of rules and the information related to the wireless device gathered by the rules engine includes at least one of: applications installed on the device, applications not installed on the device, battery status, operating system characteristics, peripherals installed on the device, operating system version, memory characteristics, application licensing restrictions and expiry, code signature and certification validation of applications, application usage patterns, device hardware characteristics, device operating characteristics, peripherals on the device, and SMS functionality.
14. The method of claim 12 , wherein receiving a set of rules further comprises checking with a server that maintains the set of rules for an updated version of the set of rules.
15. The method of claim 12 , wherein the action includes at least one of: warning a user of the wireless device, locking the wireless device, phoning a set of numbers, initiating software downloads and upgrades, alerting a corporate network monitor of the device, shutting down one or more applications on the device, shutting down the wireless device, modifying critical data on the wireless device, and erasing critical data on the wireless device.
16. The method of claim 12 , wherein the rules engine gathers said information at predetermined time intervals.