Traditional enterprise apps enable connectivity to users, consumers, partners, and employees via static web-based frontends. With the increasing adoption of mobile and IOT applications, companies are facing an order of magnitude increase in demand for the same services delivered to mobile apps. This creates a number of new challenges, including the need to seamlessly integrate mobile apps with existing enterprise functionality in a scalable and secure way.
Pivotal Web Services (PWS) is a popular platform for running cloud-native Java apps preferred by developers who are creating highly functional enterprise applications. Gluon CloudLink is a complete MBaaS (Mobile Backend as a Service), offering mobile synchronization, cloud integration, analytics and other services. Developers can utilize Gluon Mobile to create mobile Java apps to interface with Gluon CloudLink enabled applications on PWS to offer a full mobile and cloud connected solution.
With the Gluon CloudLink service now available in the PWS marketplace, developers can expose web service functionality in apps running on PWS to mobile applications using Java.
Mobile Client Applications
Using Gluon Mobile, Java developers can create a Java client application based on standard Java API’s. This client application can then be deployed on desktop systems, as well as on iOS and Android devices. The Gluon Mobile tools create a native mobile application that can be uploaded to the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
Applications created with Gluon Mobile are cross-platform:
1. The business logic is written in Java.
2. The mobile application is written in Java, using Gluon Mobile, which provides a ‘Material Design’ look and feel, a mobile application framework, and much more. Rendering is hardware accelerated on mobile devices, and is thus rendered with native performance (as opposed to web solutions being rendered in a WebView).
3. Access to device specific functionality (e.g., GPS, Bluetooth, Camera, etc. is provided via an abstract API that is implemented for iOS, Android and Desktop devices.
Gluon Mobile makes it easy for Java developers to create mobile applications. Gluon CloudLink then adds a bridge to connect and integrate with new or existing enterprise functionality in order to create enterprise-level apps.
Gluon CloudLink: Link Enterprise Functionality And Data With Mobile Apps
Gluon CloudLink bridges the gap between the world of mobile devices and the world of enterprise systems (back-end systems and cloud environments). Gluon CloudLink started as a way to synchronize data between mobile devices and back-end infrastructure—it has since been enhanced with more mobile enterprise functionality. The data services of Gluon CloudLink allow apps to synchronize data in two flows: between Gluon CloudLink and mobile devices, and between Gluon CloudLink and enterprise functionality. Mobile network bandwidth limits the data flow between mobile devices and enterprise systems (as opposed to the data flow between two enterprise systems). This inevitably results in dropped connections, interrupts and security systems that can’t gracefully recover from failures.The dataflow between Gluon Mobile and Gluon CloudLink tackles those issues by enabling enterprise components to talk with Gluon CloudLink as if they were talking with the mobile devices.
Gluon CloudLink on PWS
Gluon CloudLink is now available in the Pivotal Web Services marketplace, making it easier for cloud-native app developers to manage data in cross-platform mobile applications. App developers can easily send and receive data to and from Gluon CloudLink, which in turn will forward or receive data to/from mobile devices. With Gluon Mobile, there is no boilerplate code required to propagate the modification of a data entity in a mobile application towards an enterprise component running on PWS. Gluon CloudLink is automatically notified about changes in the data on connected clients, and will call interested enterprise listeners using connectors informing them about the changed data. In kind, when an enterprise component adds or modifies data, it can also inform Gluon CloudLink.