Without BlazeDS (that is, without deploying any Flex-specific component on the server side), Flex applications can access back-end data using either the HTTPService or the WebService.

• You can use the HTTPService component to send HTTP requests to a server, and consume the response. Although the HTTPService is often used to consume XML, it can be used to consume other types of responses. The Flex HTTPService is similar to the XMLHttpRequest component available in Ajax.
• You can use the WebService component to invoke SOAP-based web services.

BlazeDS is a series of data services that provide your Flex applications with additional data connectivity options:

• The Remoting Service allows your Flex application to directly invoke methods of Java objects deployed in your application server.
• The Message Service provides a publish/subscribe infrastructure that allows your Flex application to publish messages and subscribe to a messaging destination, enabling the development of real-time data push and collaborative applications.
• The Proxy Service allows your Flex application to make cross-domain service requests in a secure and controlled manner. In other words, it allows your Flex application to access a service available on a domain other than the domain from which the application was downloaded (without having to deploy a crossdomain.xml policy file on the target domain).

BlazeDS is deployed as a set of JAR files as part of your web application. Like the Flex Software Development Kit (SDK), BlazeDS is an open source project. More information is available here.

The objective of this test drive is to give you, in a very short amount of time, an understanding of how the BlazeDS data services work and what they can do. This test drive consists of a series of seven samples kept as concise as possible (typically between 10 and 50 lines of code) to clearly highlight features of interest.

This test drive is the same test drive available in the full download of BlazeDS.

Requirements

Flex Builder 3 (contains the free Flex 3 SDK)

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BlazeDS Turnkey Server

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Java Development Kit (1.5 or later)

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Install the BlazeDS Turnkey Server

Before running any of the sample applications, you will need to install the BlazeDS turnkey server, a ready-to-use version of Tomcat in which the BlazeDS data services have already been deployed along with sample applications. The goal of the turnkey server is to give developers an easy way to run samples and tutorials out-of-the-box.

To install the BlazeDS turnkey server:

1. Make sure that you have the JDK 1.5 or higher installed, and that you have a JAVA_HOME environment variable pointing to your Java Development Kit installation.
2. Download blazeds-turnkey-<version>.zip.

3. Unzip blazeds-turnkey-<version>.zip in /blazeds

   Note: If you unzip blazeds-turnkey-<version>.zip anywhere else, make sure you adjust the path used in these instructions accordingly.

4. Start Tomcat

   1. Open a command prompt window
   2. Navigate to /blazeds/tomcat/bin

   3. Execute the following command:

      catalina run

   4. In your browser, view http://localhost:8400/samples to make sure the installation is successful. You should see the BlazeDS samples home page.

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