I am currently studying how to make cross-platform mobile apps (with xamarin forms), and I have heard that the "correct" way to connect to a database in a non-locale server (in my case located in Azure) is by using Rest Services (or rest APIs, or however is called), instead of connecting directly to the database with the server explorer option of VS like you would do in windows forms for example(using the SQL connection, dataset, etc. Which I think they are not necessary in the first case, I am not sure).
The only answer that I have received about this is that in mobile apps "They are not permanent connections. It connects, gives you data and disconnects. They are Asynchronous connections.", and that this is done "For optimization of connection resources. The mobile is suspended or the user passes the App to the background.".
But I still don't know if this is the actual reason, and if it is I don't understand how it optimizes the connection resources. So if someone has time to explain this I would appreciate it.
Thank you for your time, I hope I have explained myself correctly, and that you all have a great day.
As Jason said,the Security issues，with proper authorization having mediator is definitely much more secure than giving a user direct access to the database, because you restrict him to the end points which run only the queries you want to.And from the platform independence and maintenance,if the apps are developed in different languages and on different platforms,it may have benefit to create a common REST interface to allow sharing of data model, caching etc.For performance and scalability，that HTTP layer of your REST API provides another valuable caching mechanism. Your servers for your REST API can put caching headers on their responses, and these responses can be cached at the network layer, which scales exceptionally well.
you could read this link Why do people do REST API's instead of DBAL's?,I think the answers are pretty good
I want certain data from a iot endpoint or desktop implementation of app to be seen on mobile version of an app and visa versa. All endpoints should be able to access and change data as they see fit.
What are the ways that you can make data available to all endpoints? For instance I have a list of tasks that i make on the application on my desktop. Then I leave my house turn off my desktop and pull up the mobile version of the application. I want to see that same list. What are the ways to do this? I have considered a cloud hosted database but it kinda seems like overkill to have a database to store maybe 10kb of data as well as the cost associated with using their service.
Things I have considered but discarded because they dont fit-
google drive with a shareable googlesheet
The issue is that it is read only. Also speed and functionality is limited.
database running on desktop that syncs to mobile app.
The issue is that mobile app needs to be running at same time as desktop. also any changes the mobile makes to the data will not be saved to database if desktop version is not on.
Is there a way to do this without having a personal server running all the time to serve out data? Is there any database hosting that is free? Or is there something more lightweight than a database that would allow me to access and modify the data from any endpoint that has internet?
Depends on many factors so a little hard to give you the "This is clearly the best option" answer.
Easiest? Probably kick up a hosted database in a Cloud provider. I'm partial to Firebase/Firestore (Google) for mobile. They're extremely low latency, so any changes are reflected pretty much instantly, and they have an awesome SDK that makes it really easy to get up and running quickly. It's equally as easy on mobile and desktop. It does require a Google Cloud Platform account to use it, but the free tiers are super generous, so unless you're doing a ton of updating, it's probably free to host it (and you get $300 free credits for the first year of GCP).
https://firebase.google.com/
I am currently creating a quiz application, which will send data between two different applications on the iPad. Is there a way to connect two Flash CS6 applications together via a local database? These flash applications will be used on iPads.
It is very important that the information is not accessible online.
As I recall iOS is very much sand-boxed to where you can't share a local database between 2 Apps.
You could look into assigning your apps different URL prefixes / schemes, but I am unsure how well Flash supports setting those up. If you get it to work though, then you could theoretically maintain one local database per app and communicate between the apps using the URL prefixes. Of course maintaining and syncing 2 separate database may turn out to a pain.
Really the solution I would lean toward is to store the common database on a server that does not have a front end to it, just a simple API. This would prevent users from accessing the data online while allowing any number of apps to access it at will. If you ever expand into Android or other mobile platforms this would allow the same data to be readily sharable as well.
I see two ways of going about feeding data to and from a mobile application.
First would be to directly connect to the database and perform queries directly.
The other option would be to build a REST API and indirectly interact with the database through a web service. There's a bit of a security hole here, which makes me think the former might be best.
I realize this doesn't touch specifically on a question about code, but moreso on the methodology of the scenario.
What are your thoughts?
The usual way would be through a REST API (or some other kind of web service / service layer).
Putting the database open in the wild, directly accessible from any outside device, is certainly a bigger security hole than using a service layer.
Plus, if your database is hosted by some web hosting company, there is a big chance that it's not even accessible directly from the web, only from the webspace you ordered with it (for security reasons!).
So you have no other choice than using a service layer in this case.
What are the strategies you employ to let multiple people work on an access database?
Is it possible to host it online and have its features still functional without having to develop a custom frontend?
MS Access as a software has a few nice features that don't require any programming to configure:
Drop down lists - choose one
Multi Checkbox lists - choose multiple
Is it possible to get all of these features available even when hosted online? I'm basically thinking of an alternate way to quickly get people to work with data using GUI features like the above without going the webapp<>MySQL way.
You have some good comments here. Keep in mind that things have changed quite a bit for access 2010.
Access 2010 allows you to build web applications. The development process is very much the same as it’s been for years, but you can’t use VBA in forms for these web applications (you use a new macro language). This new feature set allows you to publish applications you build to a website. Here is an video of an application of mine running in access 2010, and at the halfway point in the video I switch to running the access application 100% in a web browser:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU4mH0jPntI
The above is for access 2010…due out this year. The above will require you to be running SharePoint services, or use an hosting service that supports "access web" services.
For previous versions of access, for all intents and purposes, it’s not a web based system at all. Now when you say multiple users, you have to clarify what kind of users and where they plan to be. If your users are on a local office network, then MS access can be used as a multi user system right out of a box with no additional coding and programming required. It is recommended however that you split your application into a front end part that’s deployed on each user’s computer. This Concept as outlined in the following article of mine.
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/Articles/split/index.htm
Now, perhaps the users are going to be on notebooks and in different locations all over the country? In this type of case you are attempting to connect over a wide area network, or have users connect to the application over the Internet. This is a different problem. In this type of scenario, a good solution is to use something like SQL server for the backend, and you continue to deploy the Access front ends to each user’s computer. This application tends to be about the most cost affordable also. And using sql server + ms-access means you get to continue developing in Access for the most part like you always done. Another way to accomplish wide area use without resorting to sql server is to use something called terminal services. I outline these possibilities in the following article:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal//Wan/Wans.html
As mentioned, a few others here posted links to some of the new SharePoint features that you can consider using, but they not out untill later this year.
Multi-user Access apps are pretty easy to do for small workgroup user populations in the 15-25 ranger or smaller. Above that, a developer should consider upsizing to a server back end, with the trade-off being greater administrative overhead for the server vs. having to program the app more carefully if you retain the Jet/ACE back end.
As to online access, you this isn't possible over HTTP, but if you have a Windows Terminal Server available, you can host your app there and give users access to that. This is actually an extremely easy and efficient and inexpensive way to support remote users of an app, though the larger the user population, the more problematic it becomes. But by the time an Access app has a user population that would strain a Windows Terminal Server setup, you're no longer going to be using a Jet/ACE back end.
And with a server back end, you could give access to a SQL Server on a VPN over the Internet, and if you write your Access app really efficiently, even over a standard broadband connection, your users could still work productively.
Then there's the future of Access: in Access 2010, a great deal of work has been done to integrate with a host of new features in Sharepoint 2010. If you create your A2010 app using the new type of Access web forms and reports, your app can be uploaded to a Sharepoint server running the new Access Services, and it can then be used running in a web browser (not limited to IE and not dependent on any plugins or web controls, as was the case in the past with the completely worthless Access Data Access Pages). The data store can either be a SQL Server, or you could keep it Jet/ACE for users not accessing it via the web browser, and have the data stored in Sharepoint for the online users. Also, you can have an app integrated with Sharepoint running locally in Access that uses Sharepoint when connected to the Internet, and still be able to work offline when disconnected. When connected again, you synch your local changes with the Sharepoint server, resolve any differences and continue working.
The features are really quite remarkable, and according to what I've heard and seen, if the Access app is built entirely of web forms and reports, it will look and function identically when run in Access and when run in the web browser via Sharepoint. And if you need to have client-side features that you don't expose to the users running the app in the browser, you can still use traditional Access objects!
The Access development team's blog has a number of posts on what's coming in A2010, and there's a good video posted there demonstrating how A2010 integrates with Sharepoint 2010's new Access Services.
This constitutes a quantum leap in Access's web capabilities, which were previously almost non-existent, and I'm quite excited about this. I was formerly quite wary of the changes being made to Access that seemed entirely to make it a servant of Sharepoint, but now I can see that the benefit to Access users and Access developers will be huge.
One way i've heard of, is to import the access database into a SQL Server database.
(Almost any version will do.).
Then link to the SQL Server database with Access and let users use it as they did before.
Look at this link: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access/HA010345991033.aspx
If you want an online solution i'd recommend going with a normal web application architecture. (Talking to a proper database.).
I have never needed to support it myself, but from what I heard so far, performance dramatically breaks down as soon as you need to support multiple users writing simultaneously. I think this is because Access uses simple file locking to implement isolation, and this just is not the right technique for a concurrent database system.
Hosted on-line? Do you mean on the network? Technically it will work on a network but there is a reason MS-Access in not in Visual Studio - it is not considered a development platform - it is a desktop application. When MS-Access first hit the scene many people built applications using it. The multiuser functionality just is not there. Upto four or five users is ok. But I would not go for more.