Development Concepts and Overview
When you develop your app with the IBM Mobile Foundation set of tools, you must develop or configure a variety of components and elements. Learning about the components and elements involved when developing your app helps your development proceed smoothly.
In addition to getting familiar with these concepts, you will also learn about MobileFirst-provided APIs for Native, Cordova and Web applications, such as JSONStore and WLResourceRequest, as well as learn how to debug applications, use Direct Update to refresh the web resources, Live Update to segment your userbase as well as how to handle apps, adapters and other artifacts using the MobileFirst CLI.
You can either navigate to the relevant topic from the sidebar navigation, or continue reading to learn more about the various MobileFirst components.
Applications are built for a target MobileFirst Server and have a server-side configuration on the target server. You must register your applications on the MobileFirst Server before you can configure them.
Applications are identified by the following elements:
- An app ID
- A version number
- A target deployment platform
Note: The version number is not applicable to web applications. You cannot have multiple versions of the same web application.
These identifiers are used on both the client-side and the server-side to ensure that apps are deployed correctly and use only resources that are assigned to them. Different parts of Mobile Foundation use various combinations of these identifiers in different ways.
The app ID depends on the target deployment platform:
The identifier is the application package name.
The identifier is the application bundle ID.
The identifier is the application assembly name.
The identifier is a unique ID that is assigned by the developer.
If apps for different target platforms all have the same app ID, then the MobileFirst Server considers all of these apps to be the same app with different platform instances. For example, the following apps are considered to be different platform instances of the same app:
- An iOS app with a bundle ID of
- An Android app with a package name of
- A Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform app with an assembly name of
- A web app with an assigned ID of
The target deployment platform for the app is independent of whether the app was developed as a native app or as a Cordova app. For example, the following apps are both considered to be iOS apps in Mobile Foundation:
- An iOS app that you develop with Xcode and native code
- An iOS app that you develop with Cordova cross-platform development technologies
Note: The Keychain Sharing capability is mandatory while running iOS apps in the iOS Simulator when using Xcode 8. You need to enable this capability manually before building the Xcode project.
As mentioned, an application is configured on both the client-side and the server-side.
For native and Cordova iOS, Android, and Windows applications, the client configuration is stored in a client properties file (mfpclient.plist for iOS, mfpclient.properties for Android, or mfpclient.resw for Windows). For web applications, the configuration properties are passed as parameters to the SDK initialization method.
The client configuration properties include the application ID and information such as the URL of the MobileFirst Server runtime and security keys that are required to access to the server.
The server configuration for the app includes information like app management status, web resources for Direct Update, configured security scopes, and log configuration.
Learn how to add the MobileFirst client SDKs in the Adding the Mobile Foundation SDK tutorials.
The client configuration must be defined before you build the application. The client-app configuration properties must match the properties that are defined for this app in the MobileFirst Server runtime. For example, security keys in the client configuration must match the keys on the server. For non-web apps, you can change the client configuration with the MobileFirst CLI.
The server configuration for an app is tied to the combination of app ID, version number, and target platform. You must register your app to a MobileFirst Server runtime before you can add server-side configurations for the app. Configuring the server side of an app is typically done with the MobileFirst Operations Console. You can also configure the server side of an app with the following methods:
- Grab existing JSON configuration files from the server with the
mfpdev app pullcommand, update the file, and upload the changed configuration with the
mfpdev app pushcommand.
- Use the mfpadm program or Ant task. For information about using mfpadm, see Administering MobileFirst applications through the command line and Administering MobileFirst applications through Ant.
- Use the REST API of the MobileFirst administration service. For information about the REST API, see REST API for the MobileFirst Server administration service.
You can also use these methods to automate configuration of the MobileFirst Server.
Remember: You can modify the server configuration even while a MobileFirst Server is running and receiving traffic from apps. You do not need to stop the server to change the server configuration for an app.
On a production server, the app version typically corresponds to the version of the application published to an app store. Some server configuration elements like the configuration for app authenticity, are unique to the app published to the store.
The server-side of your mobile app is MobileFirst Server. MobileFirst Server gives you access to features like application management and application security, as well giving your mobile app secure access to your other backend systems through adapters.
MobileFirst Server is the core component that delivers many Mobile Foundation features, including the following features:
- Application management
- Application security, including authenticating devices and users and verifying application authenticity
- Secure access to backend services through adapters
- Updating Cordova app Web resources with Direct Update
- Push notifications and push subscriptions
- App analytics
You need to use MobileFirst Server throughout your app’s lifecycle from development and test through to production deployment and maintenance.
A preconfigured server is available for you to use when you develop your app. For information about the MobileFirst Server to use when you develop your app, see Setting up the MobileFirst Development Environment.
MobileFirst Server consists of the following components. All of these components are also included in the MobileFirst Server. In simple cases, they are all running on the same application server, but in a production or test environment, the components can be run on different application servers. For information about possible topologies for these MobileFirst Server components, see Topologies and network flows.
MobileFirst and the MobileFirst Server administration service
The operations console is a web interface that you can use to view and edit the MobileFirst Server configurations. You can also access the MobileFirst Analytics Console from here. The context root for the operations console in the development server is /mfpconsole.
The administration service is the main entry point for managing your apps. You can access the administration service through a web-based interface with the MobileFirst Operations Console. You can also access the administration service with the mfpadm command-line tool or the administration service REST API.
Learn more about the MobileFirst Operations Console features.
The runtime is the main entry point for a MobileFirst client app. The runtime is also the default authorization server for the Mobile Foundation OAuth implementation.
In advanced and rare cases, you can have multiple instances of a device runtime in a single MobileFirst Server. Each instance has its own context root. The context root is used to display the name of a runtime in the operations console. Use multiple instances in cases where you require different server-level configuration such as secret keys for keystore.
If you have only one instance of a device runtime in MobileFirst Server, you do not typically need to know the runtime context root. For example, when you register an application to a runtime with the
mfpdev app register command when the MobileFirst Server has only one runtime, the application is registered automatically to that runtime.
MobileFirst Server push service
The push service is your main access point for push-related operations like push notifications and push subscriptions. To contact the push services, client apps use the URL of the runtime but replace the context root with /mfppush. You can configure and manage the push service with the MobileFirst Operations Console or the push service REST API.
If you run the push services in a separate application server from the MobileFirst runtime, you must route the push service traffic to the correct application server with your HTTP server.
MobileFirst Analytics and the MobileFirst Analytics Console
IBM MobileFirst Foundation Operational Analytics Receiver is an optional component that provides an analytics and logger log forwarder feature that can be used by mobile apps to forward analytics and logger logs to IBM MobileFirst Foundation Operational Analytics. Usage of this service will free up the log handling done by MobileFirst Server.
MobileFirst Analytics and the MobileFirst Analytics Console
IBM MobileFirst Foundation Operational Analytics is an optional component that provides a scalable analytics feature that you can access from the MobileFirst Operations Console. This analytics feature lets you search for patterns, problems and platform usage statistics across logs and events that are collected from devices, apps, and servers.
From the MobileFirst Operations Console, you can define filters to enable or disable data forwarding to the analytics service. You can also filter the type of information that is sent. On the client side, you can use the client-side log capture API to send events and data to the analytics server.
After you install and configure MobileFirst Server into the topology that you want, any further configuration of MobileFirst Server and its applications can be done entirely through any of the following methods:
- The MobileFirst Operations Console
- The MobileFirst Server administration service REST API
- The mfpadm command-line tool
After the initial installation and configuration, you do not need to access any application server console or interface to configure Mobile Foundation.
When you deploy your app to production, you can deploy your app to the following MobileFirst Server production environments:
For information about installing and configuring MobileFirst Server for your on-premises environment, see Installing IBM MobileFirst Server.
On the cloud
Adapters in Mobile Foundation securely connect your back-end systems to client applications and cloud services.
Adapters are deployed to a MobileFirst runtime in MobileFirst Server.
In a production system, adapters typically run in a cluster of application servers. Implement your adapters as REST services with no session information and stored locally on the server to ensure that your adapter works well in a clustered environment.
An adapter can have user-defined properties. These properties can be configured on the server side without redeploying the adapter. For example, you can change the URL that your adapter uses to access resources when you move from test to production.
You can deploy an adapter to a MobileFirst runtime from the MobileFirst Operations Console, by using the mfpdev adapter deploy command, or directly from Maven.
Client-side tutorials to follow▲
- Adding the MobileFirst SDK
- Adding the MobileFirst Foundation SDK to Cordova Applications
- Adding the MobileFirst Foundation SDK to Ionic Applications
- Adding the MobileFirst Foundation SDK to React Native Applications
- Adding the MobileFirst Foundation SDK to iOS Applications
- Adding the MobileFirst Foundation SDK to Android Applications
- Adding the MobileFirst Foundation SDK to Windows 8.1 Universal or Windows 10 UWP Applications
- Adding the MobileFirst Foundation SDK to Web Applications
- Adding the MobileFirst Foundation SDK to Xamarin Applications
- Using MobileFirst CLI to Manage MobileFirst Artifacts
- Using the MobileFirst CLI in Eclipse
- MobileFirst Foundation development in Cordova applications
- Resource Requests in client applications
- JSONStore in Cordova applications
- JSONStore in React Native applications
- JSONStore in iOS applications
- JSONStore in Android applications
- JSONStore Security Utilities
- JSONStore Code Examples
- JSONStore in Cordova applications
- Client-side Log Collection
- Using Direct Update in Cordova and Ionic applications
- Using Model Update in applications
- Live Update service
- Simple Data Sharing
- Developing for Apple watchOS