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APIS & MBAAS: HOW TO EXTEND YOUR ARCHITECTURE FOR A MOBILE WORLD
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These differences are too large to be bridged by the current
three-tier standard.
Mobile is pushing another tier into enterprise architectures,
one designed to orchestrate data for the new app types, just as
previous generations of middleware did for web applications.
Criteria for the
New Mobile Tier
There are five requirements for a good mobile architectural tier:
1. ELASTIC SCALABILITY
Mobility guarantees two things:
Anywhere, anytime demand for data and services which changes
traditional usage profiles and drives up transaction volumes;
Users who are quick to issue the delete penalty to any app with
performance hiccups.
The first point speaks to the way mobile has changed user access
patterns. Data transactions are no longer chiefly a 9-to-5,
WEB MOBILE
PRINCIPAL API FORMAT
NUMBER OF DATA SOURCES
DATA SOURCE LOCATION
CLIENT DEVICE PROFILE
CLIENT-TO-DATA
CONNECTIVITY
USAGE PROFILE
DATA PAYLOAD
XML, SOAP
Few
Behind the firewall
Powerful device with few
constraints (e.g. power),
stationary access
Steady, broadband
Predictable usage hours (i.e.,
9-to-5, 8-to-10)
JSON
Many
Behind the firewall, SaaS virtual
private clouds, public cloud
Battery- and bandwidth-
constrained (by network and/or
fees), roaming
Intermittent & variable speed,
driving need for online/offline
syncing and rate limiting
Anywhere, anytime access
Large and static, optimized for
PC display and feature-driven
applications
Niche and orchestrated,
optimized for small screen and
purpose-built apps
