Connecting and running mobile systems using Worklight

Push notifications are a way for a mobile application to send information to a mobile device even when the application is not being used, such as when a news application alerts you to a breaking news story. IBM Worklight includes a unified notification framework  that offers a steady mechanism for such pushes. Because each mobile platform has a different mechanism for these notifications, this unified framework allows a developer to send the push notifications with no having to know the details of each targeted device or platform.

 

In terms of connectivity, mobile applications can operate offline, online, or in a mixed mode. IBM Worklight uses a client/server architecture that can notice not only whether a device has network connectivity, but also the quality of the connection. Acting as a client, your mobile application periodically attempts to connect to the server and to review the strength of the connection.

An offline-enabled mobile application can be used when a mobile device lacks connectivity, but some functions may be inadequate. So when creating an offline-enabled mobile application, it is useful to store information on the mobile device that can help conserve its functionality in offline mode. This information is typically from a back-end system (enterprise resource management, warehouse management, business intelligence, and so on), which means you must consider back-end data synchronization as part of the application architecture. IBM Worklight includes a data synchronization feature called the JSON store, which provides a pattern for data exchange. This pattern contains a set of operations to create, read, update, and delete data records from a data source. Each operation is queued when operating offline. When a connection becomes available, each operation is transferred to the server and performed against the source data.

In addition, IBM Worklight simplifies version management and mobile application compatibility. When a user starts a mobile application, the application communicates with a server. Using this server, IBM Worklight can conclude if a newer version of the application is available, and if so, tell the user about it or automatically push an application update to the device. The server can also might an upgrade to the latest version of an application to prevent continued use of an outdated version.