MobiLink is designed to synchronize data among many remote applications that connect intermittently with one or more central data sources. In a basic MobiLink application, your remote clients are SQL Anywhere or UltraLite databases, and your central data source is one of the supported ODBC-compliant relational databases. This architecture can be extended using the MobiLink server API so that there are virtually no restrictions on what you synchronize to on the server side.

In all MobiLink applications, the MobiLink server is the key to the synchronization process. Synchronization typically begins when a MobiLink remote site opens a connection to a MobiLink server. During synchronization, the MobiLink client at the remote site can upload database changes that were made to the remote database since the previous synchronization. On receiving this data, the MobiLink server updates the consolidated database, and then can download changes from the consolidated database to the remote database.

The quickest way to start developing a MobiLink application is to use the Create Synchronization Model Wizard. When you use the wizard, most of the steps outlined below are handled for you. See Introduction to MobiLink models.

However, even when using a MobiLink model, you need to understand the process and components of MobiLink synchronization.

Overview of a MobiLink application

To create a MobiLink application

1. Set up a consolidated database.

   • Run setup scripts against the database to add system objects required by MobiLink synchronization. Alternatively, you can create a separate system database to hold these objects.

     See MobiLink consolidated databases.

2. Set up remote databases.

   • Your remote databases can be SQL Anywhere, UltraLite, or a combination of the two.

   • In your remote databases, create MobiLink users. See MobiLink users.

   • To determine the upload in a SQL Anywhere remote database, create publications and subscriptions. See Publishing data.

     To determine the upload in an UltraLite remote database, create publications. See Publications in UltraLite.

3. To determine how the upload is applied, create server synchronization logic. See Introduction to synchronization scripts.

4. To download data that has changed since the last download, set up timestamp based synchronization. See Timestamp-based downloads.

5. Start the MobiLink server. See MobiLink server.

6. Initiate synchronization on the client.

   • For SQL Anywhere remote databases, see Initiating synchronization.

   • For UltraLite remote databases, see Designing synchronization in UltraLite.

Introductory reading

• Understanding MobiLink synchronization
• Synchronization techniques

Tutorials

• Tutorial: Introduction to MobiLink
• Exploring the CustDB sample for MobiLink
• UltraLite CustDB samples
• Exploring the MobiLink Contact sample
• Tutorial: Using MobiLink with an Oracle 10g consolidated database
• Tutorial: Using MobiLink with an Adaptive Server Enterprise consolidated database
• Tutorial: Using Java synchronization logic
• Tutorial: Using .NET synchronization logic
• Tutorial: Using .NET and Java for custom authentication
• Tutorial: Introduction to direct row handling
• Tutorial: Synchronizing with Microsoft Excel
• Tutorial: Synchronizing with XML

Other resources for getting started