Adobe® Flex™ Data Services enables developers to build applications that are rich not only in terms of user interface, but also in terms of how data flows between tiers — and in terms of the innovative services these applications can offer. Deployed as a standard J2EE application, Flex Data Services enhances the client-side Flex framework by providing high-performance connectivity with existing server-side data and business logic. Based on a robust messaging architecture, Flex Data Services integrates with existing common middleware and provides services that automatically synchronize data between client and server, add support for real-time data push and publish/subscribe messaging, and enable collaborative and occasionally disconnected applications. These features provide a richer, more satisfying experience for customers and help internal users be more productive.
Creating rich Internet applications (RIAs) requires a level of data management that goes beyond the traditional request/response model. Providing a richer, more expressive experience often requires more data-intensive interaction and introduces new challenges in managing data between the client and server tiers.
Flex Data Services manages this important data synchronization process. It removes the complexity and error potential by providing a robust, high-performance data synchronization engine between client and server. It also can easily integrate with existing persistence solutions to provide an end-to-end solution.
Flex Data Services automatically facilitates the paging of large data sets, enabling developers to focus on core application business logic instead of worrying about basic data management infrastructure.
Flex Data Services automatically handles temporary disconnects, ensuring reliable delivery of data to and from the client application.
The Flex Message Service inside Flex Data Services enables new categories of innovative applications to be delivered in the browser in a reliable and scalable manner while preserving the benefits of the traditional web deployment model. It also enables integration with existing enterprise messaging solutions.
Flex Data Services offers data-push capability, enabling data to automatically be pushed to the client application without polling. This highly scalable capability can push data to thousands of concurrent users, providing up-to-the-second views of critical data, such as stock trader applications, live resource monitoring, shop floor automation, and more.
Flex Data Services provides a publish/subscribe messaging infrastructure that integrates with existing messaging systems such as JMS and enables messages to be exchanged, in real time, between browser clients and the Flex Data Services server. It allows Flex clients to publish and subscribe to message topics with the same reliability, scalability, and overall quality of service as traditional thick client applications. This enables the creation of critical, more complex applications such as logistics handling, inventory control, stock trading, and more.
The Flex Message Service inside Flex Data Services enables a client application to concurrently share data with other clients or other servers. This model enables new application concepts like “co-browsing” and synchronous collaboration, which enable users to share experiences and work together in real time with other users.
Testing a complex application is a long process, one made even harder when each test must be run manually by a human. Functional testing tools are designed to alleviate this manual process, automating specific tests against multiple versions of an application.
Flex 2.0.1 introduces an automation framework that enables functional testing of the built-in Flex controls, in addition to providing interfaces that enable component developers to do automated testing of custom components. Using this new framework, Flex 2.0.1 further adds a plugin for Mercury QuickTestPro 9.1 enabling Flex applications to be tested using the widely popular Mercury QuickTest Pro software. (Support for additional third-party testing products may become available in the future.)
