BlackBerry unveils the BlackBerry Development Platform

BlackBerry has unveiled their new BlackBerry Development Platform, the first integration of the Good Developer Community.

The BlackBerry Development Platform, is an enterprise grade toolset which enables developers to build secure, powerful and customized mobility solutions for almost every use case. The platform augments the mobility capabilities of BlackBerry Dynamics for building secure apps, by adding tools for BlackBerry Unified Endpoint Manager (UEM), BlackBerry Workspaces, BlackBerry Enterprise Identity, BlackBerry 2FA, BBM Enterprise and BlackBerry Analytics.

This collection of tools offers opportunities for developers to expand their scope, focus on driving business value to organizations and to enhance the end user experience by developing feature-rich mobility solutions quickly and securely.

The BlackBerry Development Platform provides you with the complete tool kit needed to create compelling enterprise solutions quickly and securely. These development tools span end to end from mobile devices to back-end servers and include secure app development, MBaaS services, user interfaces, secure messaging, content & digital rights management, identity management and two factor authentication.

Developers can use the BlackBerry UEM Server and BlackBerry UEM Integration SDK to build custom solution (plug-in) to fit their needs and optionally add in BlackBerry EMM capabilities at a later time. This presents enormous possibilities for developers who no longer have to start building enterprise back-end servers from scratch.

With BlackBerry UEM Integration SDK you get direct API access to the BlackBerry UEM Core and UI allowing you access to key enterprise capabilities as Active Directory Integration, Group Management, High Availability, a custom user interface and much more. Furthermore, additional mobility capabilities can be added to the same BlackBerry UEM Server via another plug-in.

The BlackBerry Development Platform includes:

BlackBerry Dynamics

The BlackBerry Dynamics Secure Mobility Platform consists of the BlackBerry Dynamics (BD) SDK services that provide a powerful set of tools to ISV and enterprise developers. It allows them to focus on building their commercial and business apps rather than learning how to secure, deploy and manage those apps.

The BlackBerry Dynamics Platform includes:

Lifecycle management
Security and compliance policies
Secure connectivity to enterprise services
Secure storage
Secure inter-app communication
Application configuration and Application specific policies

The BlackBerry Dynamics platform supports common business operating systems, mobile and desktop, including iOS, Android, Windows Phone 10, macOS and Windows.

The BlackBerry Dynamics Platform provides a range of SDKs and plug-ins, allowing developers to work in familiar environments to build native, hybrid and web apps. Once apps are built, developers can assume the role of IT admin to quickly validate the management and distribution of their apps through the BlackBerry Dynamics Platform.

The BlackBerry Dynamics SDK is available natively to all major platforms and development technologies including:

iOS
Android
Windows
macOS

In addition, BlackBerry supports cross-platform development frameworks via dedicated BlackBerry Dynamics SDKs for:

Cordova/PhoneGap
HTML5 web apps
Xamarin

Security Services

Security Services enable you to address security concerns about making sensitive company information available on mobile devices. Ensure content stored on devices, exchanged with resources behind the corporate firewall, or shared between BlackBerry-secured apps is always encrypted. Because the platform uses government-grade device-independent crypto libraries, content is always encrypted. The BlackBerry Dynamics SDK includes support for the following security services:

Identity & Authorization APIs
Secure Storage APIs
Secure Communications APIs
Secure Inter-App Data Exchange APIs

Mobile Services

Mobile Services enable you to quickly create engaging apps that will improve user productivity. Shorten development time by using existing services — no more building everything from scratch. And because the BlackBerry Dynamics Platform is the foundation for all services, government-grade encryption ensures end-to-end security. The BlackBerry Dynamics SDK includes support for the following mobile services:

Presence Service
Send Email Service
Transfer Files Service
Push Service
Directory Lookup Service
Docs Service
Launch Service

Platform Services

Platform Services make it easy to integrate apps with enterprise infrastructure (e.g., Active Directory, SharePoint, Exchange, Office 365, Lync). Focus on creating innovative apps without worrying about programming for the backend, server maintenance or deploying complex infrastructure. Single sign-on, horizontal scaling, HA/DR, VPN-less access to the intranet — simply building on the current version of the BlackBerry Dynamics Platform enables it all. The BlackBerry Dynamics SDK includes support for the following mobile services:

Identity & Access Management
Single Sign-on Authentication
Reliable App Deployment at Scale
Secure Access to Corporate Data
App-Level Controls for IT

BlackBerry UEM Web Services and BlackBerry Web Services

The BlackBerry Web Services are a collection of SOAP web services that you can use to create apps to manage your organization’s BlackBerry UEM domain. Starting with UEM 12.6, you can also get access to BlackBerry UEM Web Services which are the collection of REST APIs. You can use both together or separate to develop applications that manage and integrate with the BlackBerry UEM domain, user accounts, applications, devices and more. You can develop applications that automate and combine several tasks that administrators would typically perform using the management console.

The BlackBerry Web Services and BlackBerry UEM Web Services are installed when you install BlackBerry UEM. BlackBerry Web Services consists of two interfaces: BWS, which contains a single WSDL for all available methods, and BWSUtil, which is used to configure authentication credentials that applications use to access the BlackBerry Web Services.

A request may require authentication from an administrator account before it can be completed. The roles and permissions that are associated with the administrator account determine what APIs the application can use, and what management tasks the application can perform. For example, if you create an application to add user accounts to BlackBerry UEM, the administrator account that the application uses must have permission to create users. To run a BlackBerry Web Services app, computers must have authenticated access to the BlackBerry UEM domain.

To use the BlackBerry Web Services and BlackBerry UEM Web Services, you should be proficient in one of the supported programming languages and in the use of XML, SOAP, REST, JSON and WSDL. You should also be familiar with the configuration and administration of BlackBerry UEM, including the management of user accounts, groups, IT policies, software configurations, and security settings.

BlackBerry Web Services

A collection of SOAP web services that you can use to perform administrative tasks in your organization’s UEM domain.

BlackBerry UEM Web Services

A collection of REST APIs that that perform similar tasks to BlackBerry Web Services but are exposed via RESTful endpoint.

UEM Core

The UEM Core is the central component of the UEM architecture and consists of several subcomponents that are responsible for:

Logging, monitoring, reporting, and management functions
Authentication and authorization services for the UEM Core local directory and company directories
Scheduling and sending commands, policies, and profiles to the devices

If there are multiple UEM instances in the domain, all the UEM Core instances are active and each of them can connect to the BlackBerry Infrastructure and process traffic.

BlackBerry Infrastructure

The BlackBerry Infrastructure registers user information for device activation and validates licensing information for UEM. Communication between the BlackBerry Infrastructure and UEM is authenticated and encrypted to provide a secure communication channel into your organization for devices outside the firewall.

BlackBerry Router

The BlackBerry Router is an optional component that acts as a proxy server for connections over the BlackBerry Infrastructure between UEM and devices.

Client application

A custom app that you can develop and integrate with the BlackBerry Web Services to manage user accounts and devices that are associated with UEM.

Your apps use the administrator account credentials to authenticate with the BlackBerry Web Services. After an application is authenticated, the BlackBerry Web Services are initialized, and the BWS and BWSUtil web services are ready to receive API calls from the application.

Management console

The management console is a web-based UI that you can use to:

Complete post-installation configuration settings
View and manage users, devices, policies, profiles, and apps
View and manage system settings, including customizing the activation email message or adding an APNs certificate
Move IT policies, profiles, groups, and users to UEM

The management console also provides access to UEM Self-Service and allows iOS device users to manage apps using the Work Apps icon.

APNs

The APNs is a service that Apple provides that sends notifications to iOS devices. UEM sends notifications to iOS devices to contact UEM for updates and to report information for your organization’s device inventory. These notifications are sent to the BlackBerry Infrastructure, where they are sent to the device using the APNs.

GCM

GCM is a service that Google provides for Android devices. UEM sends notifications to Android devices to contact UEM for updates and to report information for your organization’s device inventory. These notifications are sent to the BlackBerry Infrastructure, where they are sent to the device using the GCM.

BlackBerry Workspaces

BlackBerry Workspaces allows users to securely store, share and synchronize documents across all enterprise platforms and devices.

With Workspaces, users can securely share files with others. File owners maintain full control of each file that they share, including permissions to view, print, copy and download a file. For example, file owners can change access permissions, set a file expiration date, or revoke access to a file at any time even after a file is shared with devices beyond your organization’s control.

Developers can build apps that integrate access to Workspaces using the BlackBerry Workspaces REST API which includes two core services:

Workspaces: files can be uploaded to Workspaces to be securely shared with others
Send: method by which files are securely shared with others

For faster development, a Java SDK is also provided.

BlackBerry Workspaces provides a REST API as well as BlackBerry Workspaces Java SDK for faster development in Java environments

Using the REST API

BlackBerry Workspaces provides a REST API, samples and walkthroughs via a developer guide to help you successfully build apps with the BlackBerry Workspaces REST API, including:

Developer Guide Consult the REST API developer guide for an overview, how to authenticate requests, and examples for working with various features of the Workspaces server.
API Reference The API reference describes the interfaces, classes, methods, and data types of the BlackBerry Workspaces REST API.
Samples View code samples using workspaces, users and files.

BlackBerry Enterprise Identity

BlackBerry Enterprise Identity is an Identity as a Service (IDaaS) product that BlackBerry customers can use to federate identities for SaaS services that they may use. If you offer customers a SaaS service, Enterprise Identity can allow them to tie user identities in your service to those in their existing directories, authenticate those identities using advanced policies, and control user entitlement to your service.

Enterprise Identity supports the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) v2.0 standard. If your SaaS service provides SAML support, it’s easy to link it into Enterprise Identity and take advantage of its features in minutes. Learn how in the next steps of this Get Started. By validating your SaaS service works with BlackBerry Enterprise Identity and BlackBerry Unified Endpoint Manager (UEM), you provide BlackBerry users with convenient login and BlackBerry admins with greater control and easier management of your service.

BlackBerry Enterprise Identity is bundled with, and managed from, the on premise version of BlackBerry Unified Endpoint Manager (UEM). If you have an existing BlackBerry UEM (formerly BES) deployment in a test environment, reach out to your BlackBerry UEM administrator for assistance or to provide you access as an administrator.

BlackBerry 2FA

BlackBerry 2FA is a two-factor authentication technology that can be integrated into a wide variety of platforms and applications. Unlike legacy two-factor solutions, BlackBerry 2FA leverages user mobile devices, avoids PINs and codes, and is both inexpensive and simple to deploy.

BlackBerry 2FA can be used on nearly any mobile device – iOS, Android, or BlackBerry, whether it’s managed by BlackBerry products or not.
Integration with BlackBerry 2FA is possible in any one of three ways:

REST API. A dedicated REST API allows direct integration into your application.
RADIUS integration. BlackBerry 2FA supports a standard RADIUS interface.
SAML integration. By leveraging Enterprise Identity’s SAML interface and BlackBerry 2FA’s link to Enterprise Identity, SAML applications can also be integrated

BlackBerry 2FA is bundled with BlackBerry UEM, but requires a separate license for use.

If you plan to use the product’s RADIUS interface, you will also need to install the BlackBerry 2FA server, which acts as a RADIUS gateway.

Once your solution is integrated with BlackBerry 2FA, it can be protected by two-factor authentication that addresses effectively every user, whether employing UEM-managed devices, unmanaged devices, or separate standards-based hardware tokens.

BBM Enterprise

BBM Enterprise Services enable developers to securely build, scale and operate high performance, Enterprise-grade communications functionality into their own applications, products and offerings. Built on unmatched security for data at-rest and in-transit, BBM Enterprise services provides an evolving and extensible set of innovative features spanning IP messaging, notifications and collaboration, allowing developers to focus on writing purpose-built applications without having to concern themselves with the complexities of secure communications.

This SDK is not yet available.

BlackBerry Analytics

By utilizing the BlackBerry Analytics SDK, developers will be able to integrate rich app analytics into their apps. The BlackBerry Analytics SDK will collect a broad set of metrics around app usage which will then by available through the BlackBerry Analytics console. Developers, IT and even business analysts will be able to interrogate this data to spot trends in app usage, versions, usage times, time of day information, and much more. With the insights of the forthcoming BlackBerry Analytics capabilities, businesses will be able to optimize their spend, app development resources, app designs and much more.