We take control of Google. How did they learn to manage Android smartphones in Russia?

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Own control platform for smartphones

Petr Filippov, Product Director of Open Mobile Platform (OMP), owns a Nokia smartphone with Android operating system. To his left is Mikhail Zubov, head of sales support, on his laptop the web interface of the new version of Aurora Center is already open.

Its developments can be called the Russian analogue of Citrix Endpoint Management, VMware Workspace ONE and other EMM solutions (Enterprise mobility management or an abbreviation for enterprise mobility management). All such programs work on approximately the same principle.

The administrator is at the center of the system. This platform manager can remotely control many mobile devices simultaneously from a single computer. It is he who registers new smartphones and tablets in the system, and also imposes prohibitions and permissions for functions for each gadget. Companies and government agencies are interested in such centers to increase data security.

Initially, Aurora Center supported smartphones and tablets only on native Aurora OS, but as of the new version 3.1, companies and government agencies can also manage enterprise Android devices. Thus, the company realized the import substitution of EMM solutions and ensured its independence from the services of global vendors.

Mikhail Zubov noted that the Aurora Center has already passed the stress test – 360,000 tablets running Aurora OS were connected to the management platform during the first digital All-Russian census in 2021.

He made sure that the maximum number of supported devices confirmed by load testing could reach 500k. These can be smartphones and tablets on both Aurora and Android.

The effectiveness of mobile device management is ensured by our own push notification system, which is a push service developed by Open Mobile Platform experts.

“The server sends a command to the device about some kind of change, which is displayed on the smartphone screen in the form of a notification familiar to everyone,” said Mikhail Zubov. With the help of such messages, you can clean it, for example, if your smartphone is stolen.

Opportunity to opt out of Google services

You don’t need to restart your smartphone to support Android devices in Aurora Center – you only need one app.

The Aurora Center application is made in the form of a standard APK file. After installing it on a smartphone, the system owner receives extended rights on the device and can perform any action within Android.

Zubov assured that the use of the Aurora platform eliminates the risks associated with the disconnection of corporate smartphones and tablets by Google.

For Android devices, this is independent of the Google Play app store and Google Mobile Services (GMS) apps installed on gadgets by default.

“Let’s say that even if Google decides that some functionality has violated the rules and disabled their servers, in our case nothing will happen. “This is a local installation, completely controlled by the corporate owner of the system.”

In Aurora Center, the list of devices is uploaded using a CSV file (a text format designed to present tabular data. – Ed.) and the devices are combined into groups to speed up the process.

After a group is created, certain rules and policies can be assigned to the devices in it. For example, mandatory installation of a certain set of applications or banning the use of video cameras.

In this case, a push notification is sent to all users of the group and the rules take effect immediately on the devices, Filippov said.

During the demo, a Nokia Android smartphone added to the group refused to film, citing a ban. “The camera will also not be available in other apps, such as QR code scanner apps,” said Mikhail Zubov.

Filippov showed another function of the Aurora Center – offline scenarios. For example, if a device is offline for three days, you can create a rule and specify exactly what happens to the device: blocking or deleting data in the smartphone/tablet memory.

“You can apply this script to an entire device group. In this case, the rule will work for every smartphone. Not for everyone at the same time, but for a specific device that doesn’t come into contact,” he explained.

Already using Aurora Center

According to the OMP managers, it is currently already used with devices on Aurora OS in companies such as control centers, Russian Post, Rostelecom, Inter RAO and Russian Railways.

Russian Post has 15,000 mobile mail and cash terminals with a pre-installed payment app on Aurora. Devices with native software allow additional services to be offered to customers over the internet.

At Rostelecom, the local center manages more than 1,000 corporate mobile devices used for Aurora employees to take orders, provide photo recording and accounting for work done.

Russian Railways has a mobile app for Aurora for repair and restoration teams. Currently there are 3.6 thousand active devices for workers, their number will increase to 100 thousand in the future.

Inter RAO implemented the Mobile Lineman project, developed by OMP in partnership with Sigma, at two power plants. The project is based on Aurora and allows taking readings from sensors installed on turbines and generators and monitoring their temperature and vibrations using mobile devices. According to the developers, the implementation of the project made it possible to significantly reduce the accident rate of the equipment. Now the “Mobile Crawler” is being introduced to 20 more power plants.

At the same time, all these companies now have a bunch of different Android devices they can manage along with the devices on Aurora.

“We hope that in the near future companies will be convinced that Aurora is not inferior to Android in functionality, and that the control from the Aurora Center makes it possible to use the devices in various working mobile scenarios,” said Zubov.

Advantages and disadvantages

An important question is which Android devices are supported by Aurora Center. Currently, Aurora Center has been tested to run on Android 9, 10, and 11, according to Filippov.

In addition to the Nokia 5.1, on which the demonstration was held, the Aurora Center was also tested with other devices, for example, with Samsung and Huawei devices – the smartphones of these vendors are among the most popular in Russia.

So far, the Android version certainly does not have all the features available for Aurora OS, but the authors made sure that this is only the first version and that Aurora and other control functions will be merged in the very near future. platforms.

“The ability to manage Android devices implemented in Aurora Center will allow companies and departments to move into centralized management of existing fleets of Android devices,” Filipov said. Said.

The product director explained that the WMP business model is still unchanged – the distribution of its developments for business and government structures (B2B and B2G), not to mention entering the mass consumption market.

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