BlazeDS is a free, open source version that provides a subset of the functionality provided by LiveCycle Data Services. BlazeDS is a server-side remoting and messaging technology. Remoting simplifies communication between Flex and server-side Java by automatically serializing and de-serializing objects between Flex and Java, and vice versa. In simple words, by using BlazeDS, developers can call server-side Java methods and classes from a Flex application. By using BlazeDS, developers can create data-rich Flex applications by easily integrating with server-side Java technology and push data in real time to the Flex application.
BlazeDS, along with the Action Message Format (AMF) protocol specification, are open source. The source code is available under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL v3) from http://opensource.adobe.com/blazeds. The AMF is a compact binary data transfer protocol which increases application's data-loading performance. AMF binary data format is up to 10 times...
BlazeDS vs LiveCycle Data Services
In comparison, LiveCycle Data Services offers more features than BlazeDS. But when it comes to choosing between LiveCycle Data Services and BlazeDS, consider the following comparison points.
LiveCycle Data Services offers the following features:
High scalability and performance: If your application offers services for a very large number of concurrent users and requires the ability to send and receive data in real time
Data management: If you are building real-time data collaboration application services, which require data management abilities such as conflict management, change management, and so on
Enterprise document integration: If your application involves reporting and document generation (such as PDF documents) that include graphical assets from Flex applications (such as graphs and charts)
BlazeDS offers the following features:
In this chapter, you learned about LiveCycle Data Services and BlazeDS technologies for integrating Flex applications with service-side Java. You also understood detailed features offered by BlazeDS and LCDS.
In the next chapter, you will learn about various data access methods with code examples along with the Flash Player security model. You will also get an overview of various data types mapping between Java to ActionScript during serialization/deserialization, which will help you to get started with Flex and server-side Java communication.
