Sybase Unwired Platform
Sybase (An SAP company) is a well-known company for enterprise mobility. SAP buying Sybase was a good move to augment SAP's mobile solutions, what with Net-Weaver for mobile not being much of a success.
Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP) is an innovative product from Sybase that helps bridge the gap between Enterprise Data and a Mobile Device.
SUP can be used by enterprises as well as independent software vendors to create mobile applications for multiple device types.
SUP as a platform can not only be used to mobilize SAP, but also other enterprise database systems like Sybase Databases. Though support for non SAP/Sybase Products is still at its infancy. As most companies run multiple systems other than SAP, the clear benefit is that with SUP you can mobilize the whole enterprise and not only SAP. SUP also includes Afaria, the market leading device management system from Sybase.
How SUP works?
Mobile Business Objects (MBO )
MBO's are the core concept of SUP. MBO is nothing but a representation of Data in the form of a table i.e object data models. What SUP does is create a Database Table for each MBO a user creates and stores it in a Consolidated Database(CDB). This Data is refreshed time to time according to the settings assigned by the user. Each table contains sets of attributes, operations, and relationships that allow segmented data sets to be synchronized to the device. Applications can reference one or more MBOs and can include synchronization keys, load parameters, personalization, and error handling. We can also configure cache settings so that refresh of data in the CDB is also personalized.
Currently supported ways of creating MBO's
1. Web Service - SUP can read and write to SOAP Web Services. Modern SAP systems are equipped with a huge amount of pre-defined Web Services and SUP can leverage them. Of course you can write your own web services and mobilize them too.
2. RFCs/BAPIs - the SUP middle ware server is Java based and can be connected to SAP via the SAP Java-Connector (JCo) connectors.
3. Sybase Database - The Sybase Advantage Database Server tables can also be used to create MBO's
The main advantage of having a CDB is that SUP replicates the required data from within EIS to the middleware. This reduces the load on the EIS system, as data has to be pulled from SAP only once and that is distributed to the mobile devices from the SUP middleware.
The other solution that SUP offers is Sybase CRM for Workflow applications
SUP provides with a pre-built software that is available off the shelf for Blackberry Windows Mobile & iPhone with which we can deploy a Mobile workflow solution in matter of weeks.
How to create custom Mobile Applications using SUP ?
Custom Mobile Applications using SUP means Native development of Applications
1. Deploy the MBOs to the server, For iPhone/ Windows Mobile we use the Message Based Service and for Blackberry we use the Replication based Services.
2. Decide the platform and then generate code for the platform. SUP generates the complete source for Mobile objects and connectivity between Mobile and SUP server.
3. Write the code for the UI and plugin the generated code, Make the necessary connections and you are done. Now Deploy the application to the device
So why use SUP instead of Net Weaver Mobile?
Sybase Unwired Platform | NetWeaver |
Supports multiple platforms – Blackberry, iPhone/iPad, Windows Mobile and Windows 32 and 64bit, Support for Android is planned for the future. | Supports only Windows Mobile |
Able to do native development for each platform | Only for Windows Mobile |
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