eG Monitoring
 

Measures reported by BBerryMdsConTest

Application developers can use the BlackBerry® MDS Connection Service component of the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server to proactively deliver data or web content directly to BlackBerry devices that are activated on an organization's BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Users do not need to request or download data; the push application, in conjunction with the BlackBerry MDS Connection Service, delivers it as soon as it is available. This way, BlackBerry device users gain access to web content. It also permits applications on devices to receive application data and updates from your organization's application servers or content servers.

By monitoring the MDS communication between the MDS-enabled devices and the BlackBerry Enterprise server, you can determine the number of handheld device users to whom data will be pushed by the MDS, and thus infer the load imposed by such users on the BES. In the process, you can also monitor how MDS controls the flow of data packets to the BlackBerry device, and regulate the flow (if need be) based on your findings. This test enables you to achieve all of the above.

The measures made by this test are as follows:

Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation
Mds_conn_enabled_users Indicates the number of users who have enabled the BlackBerry MDS Connection Service on their handheld devices. Number  
Push_conns_count Indicates the total number of push connections that were initiated by this BlackBerry MDS Connection Service. Number Using the BlackBerry® MDS Connection Service, you can push content to the BlackBerry handheld device using any of the following push methods:

  • Pushing content to a browser channel: This method delivers content to the browser cache and adds an icon on the Home screen as an entry point to the content. Clicking the icon opens the pushed content in the browser.

  • Pushing content to the message list: This method delivers content to the message list, where it appears as an item in the list. Clicking the item in the message list displays the pushed content in the browser.

  • Pushing content to the browser cache: This method delivers content to the cache, but provides no notification to the user. The next time the user accesses the content, the updated cached content is displayed.
Cached_push_conns Indicates the number of push connections that pushed content directly to the BlackBerry Browser cache. Number Browser cache push content helps to ensure that users can access pages from a local cache at any time, even when they are outside a wireless coverage area. An application that pushes data to the browser cache can include an expiry time that defines the length of time that the data remains in the cache before it is removed.

The default amount of time the pushed content is stored in cache memory depends on the version of the BlackBerry® Device Software that is running on the BlackBerry handheld device. In BlackBerry Device Software version 3.8 or later, pushed content is cleared from the cache after 12 hours. On the handheld devices running an earlier version of the BlackBerry Device Software, the expired pushed content is cleared from the cache only after 29 days.
Data_received Indicates the amount of data received by all the MDS-enabled BlackBerry devices on MDS connections that they initiated. KB An abnormal increase/decrease in the value of this measure is a cause for concern.
Data_transmitted Indicates the amount of data transmitted by all the MDS-enabled BlackBerry devices on MDS connections that they initiated. KB The BlackBerry® MDS Connection Service controls the flow of data that is sent to the BlackBerry device. This flow control allows the BlackBerry MDS Connection Service to minimize the amount of data that is sent over the wireless network, and can help to reduce the impact of pushing data to BlackBerry devices that are out of network coverage, turned off, or otherwise unavailable.

The BlackBerry MDS Connection Service sends data to each BlackBerry device specified in the push request as a series of packets.

To control the flow of pushed data, the BlackBerry MDS Connection Service initially sends a maximum of five packets. The BlackBerry MDS Connection Service does not send additional packets until the BlackBerry device returns an acknowledgment that the initial packets were received. By default, the BlackBerry MDS Connection Service limits the size of packets to 29 KB for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 4.0, or 1 KB for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1 or later.