Web 2.0 Connect is a tool for developers of Rich Internet Applications to access and utilize Operations Center resources (data and/or functions) in their applications. It:
Can be used to build distributed solutions when there is a need to access Operations Center resources using the HTTP protocol
Provides a more simple application programming interface (API) than SOAP-based Web services
Has an API that is particularly suited to building Web 2.0 style applications, but is equally suitable as an API for non-Web based solutions
Provides solutions architects and developers with a simple API for interapplication communication to Operations Center
Is based on the Representational State Transfer (REST) architecture, which provides a consistent and simple method of accessing a system’s resources
For more information about REST, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer.
Web 2.0 Connect has applications that can be diverse in their usage, ranging from Web-hosted HTML applications to stand-alone desktop clients. The distribution of the solution depends on the type of application architecture. Applications developed using Web 2.0 Connect are considered standard Web applications and can be distributed on any Java-based Web Server. They can also be distributed using the Operations Center dashboard. The Operations Center dashboard is a portal that allows users to customize their own Web pages with content from Operations Center, as well as other sources.
The Flex examples in this book were created using Adobe Flex Builder, which is highly recommended for developing Flash based solutions.