Migration from GCM to FCM

• GCM - Google Cloud Messaging
• FCM - Firebase Cloud Messaging

Google has announced decommissioning of GCM on April 11th, 2019. This means that no new GCM tokens can be generated for real-time notifications post April 11th, 2019.

EMM vendors are mandated to move to Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) for providing real-time notifications to devices. As per Google mandate, MaaS360 will move to FCM for token generation from MaaS360 for Android agent version 6.50 onwards.. The tokens are used for sending real-time notifications from MDM server to Android devices.  

Customers are requested to upgrade to Android agent 6.50+ as early as possible. However, existing devices will continue to work even after April 11th, 2019 until such a device comes up for re-enrollment. In case of re-enrollment, administrators should consider upgrading the device first to Android agent 6.50+ and then completing the enrollment.

Note: GCM deprecation will not affect devices that do not have currently have Play Services support.

Impact of migration:

• The devices that were enrolled before MaaS360 for Android app version 6.50 will already be registered with GCM and will continue to be on GCM as the GCM token will continue to work indefinitely. 
• The devices enrolled with MaaS360 for Android app version 6.50 and later versions will be registered with FCM.
• The FCM server will generate both GCM and FCM tokens for GCM and FCM registered devices respectively.
• Any new enrolments with Agent version older than MaaS360 for Android app version 6.50 will not be able to create new GCM token, once Google deprecates support for GCM in April. Hence, devices need to upgrade to MaaS360 for Android app version 6.50 and above in case of re-enrollments.