Web Access via Blackberry

Hi guys, I know Blackberry and mobile device support is not native to Orion. But I have taken the advice of others on here, built a custom login with custom views for mobile access. I am using the Balckberry Storm 9530 so I am using a single column with a width of 480 (Storm in landscape). On the PC these screens look good, very simplified - a summary with active alerts and down nodes, a view showing UPS voltages and battery capacities, and the last 30 events (custom report, with some bugs to work out yet).

My problem is, I can't access the web server via the Blackberry. I always get a "server timed out" message. Does anyone know if I need to set up the Blackberry browser a certain way? I am going to download the Opera mini browser and test with it. I have tried setting the browser ID to Blackberry and IE with no change.

Any help is appreciated as this would be a great addition to Orion's usefulness.

Thanks in advance.

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Accepted answers

acherman

Okay, so as was mentioned in another thread by Denny, the BB browser sucks b*lls. So, I downloaded Opera Mini and it works! It's not perfect, since it's not a Storm specific version, but it works.

All comments

acherman

Okay, so as was mentioned in another thread by Denny, the BB browser sucks b*lls. So, I downloaded Opera Mini and it works! It's not perfect, since it's not a Storm specific version, but it works.

FormerMember

the BB browser sucks b*lls

That, my friend, is an insult to all the b*llsuckers out there. Drink the kool-aid: buy an iphone. I was a BB user for many years, and I made the switch and haven't regretted it for a minute.

acherman

I would buy and iPhone, but we are also a Telus dealer, so I am stuck with a Telus phone for work use. And in our rural area the Telus CDMA coverage far exceeds the Rogers GSM coverage. ;-)

The iPhone does look like a lot of fun, but the Storm does have some apps slowly coming out that make it a little more fun. haha

vmeter

Why isn't this built into Orion yet? It would be nice to use my iPhone, besides just card games. IPswitch has also been bothering me lately with their mobile access pitch: http://www.whatsupgold.com/products/mobile.aspx. I haven't tried it out yet, but would your workaround be the same thing?

FormerMember

Orion already works with the iPhone because it works with Safari. There's no workaround required.

kahmeelyon

I've tried everything to get Orion to work with the Blackberry Browser and still no joy. I first had to disable Windows Pass Through Authentication to get it to prompt for login credentials. Then I created a slimmed down single column summary page. I can get to the login page. But when I enter the credentials it looks like it's going to work but then I get spat back to the login screen.

This is very frustrating. Many products out there including Microsoft System Operations Center include mobile views out of the box. I would love to know when Solarwinds intends to provide this badly needed functionality.

DirtySouth

I would agree that the BB browser isn't the greatest, but my company has a BB Enterprise server and we don't allow any other smart-phones to connect to our internal network. Can anyone confirm whether SolarWinds is even considering making a mobile version specifically for BB?

chris.schear

I have a Blackberry Bold and have no problems accessing Orion NPM from it.

chris.schear

I opened up a support case on my "%1 is not a valid Win32 application" error when trying to setup a second IIS web instance on a different port, this was the response:

-----

Our software supports one copy of the Web Console per Primary Poller or per Additional Web Server. It sounds like you'll need to contact your Sales Representative to get set up with a copy of the Additional Web Server.

Is there anything else I can do for you?

-----

I have followed with:

I would disagree with your suggestion. Instead of contacting a Sales Representative to license another web instance just so Blackberries can view Orion easier, I would recommend forwarding a request onto engineering/product development to implement a feature that supports alternate authentication mechanisms and/or a mobile “m.<yourorionURL>.com” front-end for Blackberries, Smartphones, etc.

~and~

Before we go the developer route, is SolarWinds’ official stance that a listening port on a server constitutes “more than one Web Console”? There is only one web console installed on the server. The fact there are two different IIS-derived ports doesn’t duplicate the web console, it just allows for more than one TCP port you can access it over. It’s the SAME web console in both cases. If I change the default IIS instance from port 80 to 8080, I haven’t changed the Web Console. Also, in supporting SSL connectivity, having a single Web Console listening over TCP/80 and TCP/443 should technically be a “Second instance”, which you don’t require a sales representative to be involved with.

How is an Orion front-end listening on 80/443 any different than one listening on 80/81? It’s two listening ports on a single Web Console.

bcole

I just set this up on version 9.5sp2 and it appears to work ok on Curve. My World Edition phone doesn't work (time out).

I can understand Solarwinds reluctance to add functionality to phones, but it is becoming a necessity.

FormerMember

What if we were to expose certain information as an RSS feed? Such as alerts and top 10s. Then you could get the info on any phone with an RSS reader (which is most of them).

Thoughts?

r0berth1

Yes, i have some thoughts on the subject. I think that SW needs to focus on fixing the problems with 9.5 SP2 first, and once all of the issures are fixed, then they can focus on adding new features. example:

Maps - Network Atlas (in my opinion) is far better utility than map maker. but there are still issues with the maps, if you set the map preferences to anything above 50% before the map status shows down, the all of the maps get grayed out and show unknown. This is not major, but it is a pain in the butt.

Reports - there is still an issue with Report Writer when creating reports. the issue is random, but when creating new reports, the report writer will crash (I have taken screen shots and sent them in with the diagnostic info) but have heard nothing back about it except to try installing the latest service pack and/or reinstalling Orion.

Stored Procedures - the web pages along with most of the reports would probably run faster if they called a stored procedure on the db server instead of trying to run the script from the webpage. This is just a thought.

kahmeelyon

What if we were to expose certain information as an RSS feed? Such as alerts and top 10s. Then you could get the info on any phone with an RSS reader (which is most of them).

This isn't a bad idea but I'm not sure it gives me much beyond what I get with the email alerts. I have realized that the problem in my case is the browser on the Pearl. But I think SW could put some time into coming up with views which are mobile optimized. This doesn't even involve any coding.

MagnAxiom

Acherman,

You need to be clear here that by default, any browser besides your default carrier browser generally does not have access inside any corporate networks your Orion may be on, and may not be able to access it because of that. If your Orion server is accessible via the general WWW, then disregard my statement.

There may be options to enable an alternative browser to utilize the BES connection to be able to browse to websites inside your corporate environment.

acherman

Hey MagnAxiom, thanks for your input. We do not use BES, and I have made our Orion server accessible via the Internet. I have stopped using the BB browser almost completely in favor of Opera Mini, except when necessary. I do not have any issues with Opera Mini from my BB Storm 9530, and have created custom views with the priority info I need when my BB is my only available access. I use a second set of login credentials to access these "mobile" views. Works great.

As a last resort I simply grab my laptop and use Tetherberry (now Tether) and connect via Firefox or RDP.

bshopp

All on this thread, so I am taking a much closer look at this now, would any of you be willing to get a call with me and chat about your thoughts and ideas. If yes, send me a PM

SOcchiogrosso

I am actually able to navigate the NPM Website via my BlackBerry.

(You must make sure you are using the BlackBerry Browser and not the internet browser in the browser options.. The blackberry browser accesses MDS via the BES while the internet browser bypasses everything.)

But I run a BES as well all BlackBerries that's it. For now I just get email alerts when something happens that it should not. Anyway to integrate would be great.

kjlombo

Just curious...what ever became of mobile interaction with Orion either through BB or RSS or Email? I've seen all of this on this thread, and then...<chirp> Some form of communication would be beneficial.