Adobe SOA platform launches Data Services

Architects, Flex/Apollo/LiveCycle/Java Developers take note. Adobe® LiveCycle Data Services 2.5 has just been released on Adobe labs for Windows, Linux, Unix as well as a cross platform java installer. Adobe has been a pragmatic adopter of SOA for years and this release shows engineering excellence and forethought. LDS is the next generation of Flex Data Services.

The name change reflects an important expansion in the use of these valuable services. In addition to serving the needs of both Flex and Ajax developers, LiveCycle Data Services will provide enhanced integration with Adobe’s other LiveCycle server products for document and process management, enabling business to create new ways to engage and reach customers.

Most people might think of SOA as only request-response. This is not the only pattern for service interaction within SOA and there are many others such as subscribe-push, multicast, probe and match etc. LiveCycle Data Services is a J2EE server that fulfills many

The feature set of LiveCycle Data Services 2.5 includes:

• A new Flex SDK (which will be released currently with Data Services 2.5), which includes updates the client-side Web Services library.
• Server-side PDF generation capabilities for RIA applications generates properly formatted PDF documents that include graphical assets from Flex applications, such as graphs and charts.
• Runtime configuration of data destinations in Data Services eliminates the need for a compile-time dependency between clients and the Data Services server configuration.
• Support for WSRP portal deployment of Flex applications, which makes it easy for developers to deploy a Flex application as a portlet in a portal server without having to do any portal specific programming.
• Per Client Messaging quality of service (QoS) allowing Flex clients to select custom data access policies for real- time data.
• Ajax Data Services, enabling Ajax applications to take advantage of the data management and messaging capabilities available in Data Services.
• The Flex-Ajax Bridge (FABridge), which is a small library that can be inserted into a Flex application, a Flex component, or even an empty SWF file to expose it to scripting in the browser without any additional coding.
• Improved off-line message queuing, supporting future Apollo development, which allows Flex applications using Data Services to queue outbound messages locally when the client is offline and manage exactly what is sent to the server upon reconnect.
• Groundwork for future Apollo application support, including a local data cache that enables developers to cache client data requests and data changes to the local file system for later retrieval when an application resumes.
• RTMP tunneling (RTMPT) that allows the use of the RTMP protocol in Data Service applications to traverse firewalls and proxies that currently prevent direct RTMP client connections to the server.
• A new SQL adaptor, which dramatically simplifies the development of applications using Data Management Services without having to write any server-side Java code.
• A new JSP Tag Library that enables MXML and ActionScript code to be embedded into a JSP page providing an easier entry for J2EE developers to Flex programming.
• Several important enhancements to core Data Services performance and scalability.

LiveCycle Data Services 2.5 includes the following Web Application Archive (WAR) files:

• flex.war - The primary Flex WAR file: use this as a starting point for building your LiveCycle Data Services application.
• samples.war - Sample Flex applications.
• inventory.war - Data Management Service - Ajax sample application
• flex-admin.war - Simple administration and monitoring application.