Cloud computing and mobile applications using MEAP in mobile development environments

The author also gives an example of an actual cloud-oriented meap (i.e. Convertigo Mobilizer) that he has been involved in creating.

There are more and more mobile projects in the enterprise, and valuable projects need to create more projects, but this demand is a major bottleneck. It is no longer a connection to a data source to a mobile device, IT infrastructure is facing multiple device platforms, complex security issues, different enterprise applications and data sources, and many devices have no APIs.

This "multi-device to multi-platform" mobile application integration scenario brings some mobility integration challenges.

Mobile Integration challenges

The integration challenges that companies face in consolidating mobile applications into their cloud environments include:

Mobile support for existing applications. Complex mobile development language. The trend of self-contained devices (Bring-your-own-device, BYOD). How to create and locate business logic. How can you not think of a moving Web-oriented architecture as SOA.

Let's take a closer look at them; Later, I'll explain in more detail how my team handles these issues in developing our products.

The existing application does not support moving

Support for mobility means allowing access to the data and business logic of these applications, but unfortunately these applications rarely provide the APIs or services needed to build a new mobile user interface. To reduce the workload of changing existing applications, one solution is to support mobile functionality through connectors on existing applications that have not changed.

Developers may not have experience with complex mobile development languages

Developing mobile applications typically requires the use of complex objective C and Java™ resources, which are often not well understood by novice Web developers. Structurally, however, mobile applications do use user interfaces that require HTML5 and JavaScript skills that are available to WEB developers. One solution to this challenge is to provide a transformation bridge that allows Web developers to write mobile application code using the technology they know.

Enterprises must support the trend of multiple specific platforms and self-contained devices

Cross-platform challenges require that mobile development be completed at a time to run on multiple platforms (IOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, and so on) and multiple devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) with different memory and display size parameters. As mentioned in the previous section, a common, easier to use transformation Bridge may be the key to addressing this challenge.

Where is the best place to use the application business logic?

Application business logic should not be encoded in mobile devices: Coding application business logic within devices can lead to unmanageable and repetitive coding of the same business processes across multiple mobile applications. If business logic is centralized on the server side, it will bring more efficient and manageable schemas that can be reused in multiple mobile applications. It is wise to create a business logic layer on the server to be able to assemble, orchestrate, and compute data from multiple enterprise sources.

Don't confuse SOA with WOA

Most organizations know (or specialize in) the concept and structure of a service-oriented architecture. They may have a SOAP WEB service based information system, organized by the enterprise business Bus. But the mobile world is not based on SOA. Most mobile device environments rely on WOA, the Web-oriented architecture that is based on REST or JSON services and validated through the OAuth protocol. These protocols are optimized for low-bandwidth 3G networks. In the WOA world, there should be a way to take advantage of an organization's SOA attributes; One solution is to create an interface layer between a very structured, rigorous SOA and a flexible and agile WOA. For example, the interface layer should be able to transform an existing SOAP Web service into a Rest/json service with several clicks.

Now let's take a quick look at how the Mobile enterprise application platform (or MEAP) adapts to the mobile application integration scenario I described earlier.

MEAP Insider

The Mobile enterprise Application Platform is a comprehensive suite of products and services that supports application development and deployment by addressing some of the details of the process. During the application deployment phase and throughout the lifecycle, MEAP helps developers solve the challenges of developing mobile software by adding a management layer to address the scope of devices, networks, and user groups.

Some common properties of MEAP include:

Cross-platform, the ability to "just write once and deploy everywhere". Lets you stop obsessing over the interface of the underlying business logic. Applies to multiple applications that the company wants to deploy on a single infrastructure. An application that scales to the size of the company's current mobile user base. Applications that can be used in both inline and offline mode. Easy to develop templates that allow programmers to take advantage of more complex languages without being proficient.

Common MEAP Structure

Meap typically consists of three components:

Mobile Middleware Server: Handle all system integration, security, communication, scalability, cross-platform support, etc. Data is not stored on the server, which manages data between the backend system and the device. Mobile client applications: Connecting to the middleware server and driving the user interface and business logic on the device. They have a "fat" version (on the local application installed on this device) and a "thin" version (in a form similar to HTML5 in the device browser). Mobile Configuration/Development toolbox: Create and adjust mobile components.

When should I consider using meap?

It analyst Gartner recommends that you consider using MEAP if you want to enable mobility to support three or more mobile applications or mobile operating systems, or if you want to integrate with at least three backend data sources. (Gartner RAS Core G00211688, April 2011; registration required.) ）