CODEWITHSUNDEEP
azureazure-api-appsazure-mobile-services
Vladimir Akopyan
Vladimir Akopyan

Reputation: 654

IMobileServiceSyncTable with generic API server

We have built a simple mobile app that connects to ASP.net Web-API 2. We would like to use Microsoft client SDK for it's offline sync support. Now that Azure Mobile Apps support custom authentication we could actually take the leap.

I want to know out if the offline sync SDK absolutely requires us to use Azure Mobile App or Azure Mobile Services.

Microsoft documentation is full of how-to guides but does not explain what happens under the hood. The best I could understand, both are just OData rest API's and swagger for documentation.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 160

Answers (2)

Fabio Cavalcante
Fabio Cavalcante

Reputation: 12538

Vladmir,

On top of OData, in order to support features like soft delete, offline sync and others, the Azure Mobile Client SDK expects the server to implement a certain protocol. So although the answer to your question:

[does the] sync SDK absolutely requires us to use Azure Mobile App?

... is no, and in theory, you could implement your own API, but I would recommend against doing so, since (among other reasons) even if you manage to implement the expected conventions and behaviors, this will become a maintenance challenge down the road if you need to upgrade the client SDK to take advantage of bug fixes and/or new features.

The good news is that with the latest release of the Azure Mobile Apps server SDK, adding mobile capabilities to an existing ASP.NET Web API application is trivial, and you should be able to enable the scenarios you're looking for simply by adding the appropriate Table controllers. So you can just enhance your existing application and not have to develop and maintain the Azure Mobile Apps specific logic yourself.

About your last question, since both, the client and the server SDK are both open source and developed in the open, you can look at what what makes the magic happen here:

https://github.com/Azure/azure-mobile-apps-net-server

https://github.com/Azure/azure-mobile-apps-net-client

I hope this helps!

Upvotes: 2

Mostafa
Mostafa

Reputation: 3302

The answer for your first question: Yes the SDK can be used in any Server API you have since it will be your entry point to work with Azure Mobile Services.

The Azure Mobile app creates a mobile services instance which has push notifications and SQL tables to store all messages you would like to send with the capability to customize the message as needed. Also it creates a notifications hub instance under the hood to manage notifications for all mobile platforms. Azure mobile apps provide offline capabilities through native sync services between db on your devices and the server when connectivity is present.

Feel free to ask more questions to have a full understanding on How mobile apps works.

Hope this helps.

Upvotes: 1

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