For up-to-date product documentation, see the IBM MobileFirst Foundation Developer Center.

Applications

Applications are built for a target MobileFirst Server. They have a server-side configuration on the target server. You must register your applications on the MobileFirst Server before we can configure them.

In IBM MobileFirst™ Platform Foundation, applications are identified by the following elements:

• An app ID
• A version number
• A target deployment platform

Note: The version number is not applicable to web applications. We cannot have multiple versions of the same web application. These identifiers are used on both the client side and the server side to ensure that apps are deployed correctly and use only resources assigned to them. Different parts of IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation use various combinations of these identifiers in different ways.

The app ID depends on the target deployment platform:

Android

For Android apps, the identifier is the application package name.

iOS

For iOS apps, the identifier is the application bundle ID.

Windows

For Windows apps, the identifier is application assembly name.

Web

For web apps, the identifier is a unique ID that is assigned by the developer.

If apps for different target platforms all have the same app ID, then IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation considers all of these apps to be the same app with different platform instances. For example, the following apps are considered to be different platform instances of the same app:

• An iOS app with a bundle ID of com.mydomain.mfp
• An Android app with a package name of com.mydomain.mfp
• A Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform app with an assembly name of com.mydomain.mfp
• A web app with an assigned ID of com.mydomain.mfp.

The target deployment platform for the app is independent of whether the app was developed as a native app or as a Cordova app. For example, the following apps are both considered to be iOS apps in IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation:

• An iOS app that you develop with Xcode and native code
• An iOS app that you develop with Cordova cross-platform development technologies

Application configuration

An application is configured on both the client side and the server side. For native and Cordova iOS, Android, and Windows applications, the client configuration is stored in a client properties file (mfpclient.plist for iOS, mfpclient.properties for Android, or mfpclient.resw for Windows). For web applications, the configuration properties are passed as parameters to the SDK initialization method (see Initializing the MobileFirst SDK). The client configuration properties include the application ID and information such as the URL of the MobileFirst Server runtime and security keys required to access to the server. The server configuration for the app includes information like app management status, web resources for Direct Update,configured security scopes, and log configuration.

The client configuration must be defined before you build the application. The client-app configuration properties must match the properties that are defined for this app in the MobileFirst Server runtime. For example, security keys in the client configuration must match the keys on the server. For non-web apps, we can change the client configuration with the MobileFirst Platform CLI (mfpdev command).

The server configuration for an app is tied to the combination of app ID, version number, and target platform. The version number is not applicable to web apps. You must register your app to a MobileFirst Server runtime before we can add server-side configurations for the app.

Configuring the server side of an app is typically done with the MobileFirst Operations Console. We can also configure the server side of an app with the following methods:

• Grab existing JSON configuration files from the server with the mfpdev app pull command, update the file, and upload the changed configuration with the mfpdev app push command.

• Use the mfpadm program or Ant task.

  See Administering MobileFirst applications through the command line and Administering MobileFirst applications through Ant.

• Use the REST API of the MobileFirst administration service.

We can also use these methods to automate configuring your MobileFirst Server.

Remember: We can modify the server configuration even while a MobileFirst Server is running and receiving traffic from apps. You do not need to stop the server to change the server configuration for an app.

On a production server, the app version typically corresponds to the version of the application published to an app store. Some server configuration elements like the configuration for app authenticity, are unique to the app published to the store.

Parent topic: Development concepts and overview