The first hurdle with creating the iPhone client is to overcome the SQL Server CE synchronization of the current ClickMobile client. In this post, I describe in short the decision I took in the replacement of this technology.
The current ClickMobile solution is storing all the data and the communication into local SQL Server CE database. Then the client taking advantage of the built-in technology of SQL Server CE to synchronize the local instance with the centralized instance on the remote server.
SQL Server CE includes a special "Remote Data Access" object, that communicate with the central SQL Server over HTTP. This object exposes special PUSH and PULL methods for table synchronization. On the server, ClickMobile is an agent, which runs in the background and poll the SQL Server database. This agent is responsible for processing the "requests" records.
I want to have the iPhone client communicating using the same "channel". So I started by creating a WebService with PUSH and PULL methods. This WebService allows the client to perform the table synchronization without running SQL Server CE.
It is now the time to create the client side component. I think it should be a SQLite to SOAP and SOAP to SQLite gateway. The SOAP messages are proprietary and are not following any standard (except of being SOAP messages). Following this client side development, I may also develop compression to save on bandwidth.
Well, off to work now...
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
ClickMobile for the iPhone
I have decided to develop an engineer client application for the iPhone (similar to ClickMobile). I guess I will have this blog updated with my progress from time to time.
Here is a short status of what I did already:
1. It took me few days to have a running environment of Service Optimization on VirtualBox (including both server side of ClickMobile, as well as PC client of ClickMobile).
2. It took me another day to bridge the host OS and the guest OS securely, so the iPhone Simulator can talk to the WebService on the virtual machine.
3. Another day I spent on creating small iPhone app, that can send SOAP message to WebService in the ClickMobileSync directory, and parse the SOAP response.
Now, since there is no SQL Server Mobile for iPhone, I will need to go with custom solution (hope this wont be too long).
If you have any comments, requests, or priorities for such application, please leave a blog comment or call me. I would be more than happy to hear from you ;-)
Here is a short status of what I did already:
1. It took me few days to have a running environment of Service Optimization on VirtualBox (including both server side of ClickMobile, as well as PC client of ClickMobile).
2. It took me another day to bridge the host OS and the guest OS securely, so the iPhone Simulator can talk to the WebService on the virtual machine.
3. Another day I spent on creating small iPhone app, that can send SOAP message to WebService in the ClickMobileSync directory, and parse the SOAP response.
Now, since there is no SQL Server Mobile for iPhone, I will need to go with custom solution (hope this wont be too long).
If you have any comments, requests, or priorities for such application, please leave a blog comment or call me. I would be more than happy to hear from you ;-)
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