REST Services Applications

The SAP® Mobile Platform REST Services API enables standard HTTP client applications running in any platform to access SAP Mobile Platform REST services.

SAP Mobile Server provides REST services so that applications can be built as any standard HTTP application to leverage SAP Mobile Server for security and push features among others.

The client application should first register an application connection with device information, such as device type, push information and password capability and so on. After registering, application can retrieve and update the application connection settings through REST API. You can enable or disable the push notification only after registering.

Note: The application connection can be deleted through REST API, when it is not in use. In this case, the data stored by application in the custom fields of the application connection will be lost.

The application can download resources (such as meta-data files, multimedia files, and so on.) through resource bundles service, in order to initialize client application.

Then, the application can access SAP® Gateway through proxy service, and receive native push notification triggered by gateway if push properties are configured and enabled. If application supports can also upload the business transactions for tracing using BTX service.

This development approach supports:

Registration (creating an application connection)
Authentication
Native push notification
Configuration

You build your client applications using third party developer tools, and without using any SAP Mobile SDK or native client libraries. SAP Mobile Platform provides management and monitoring of the applications, and support for native push notification such as Apple Push Notification Service, BlackBerry Enterprise Server push, or Google Cloud Messaging.

Optionally, you may use certain SAP Mobile Platform native client libraries to enable complex application capabilities, such as OData parsing and building, caching, or data vault management. For more information, see Developer Guide: OData SDK. You may also use third-party JavaScript framework and helper libraries.

REST SDK Library

(Applicable to iOS and Android platforms) The REST SDK libraries enable consumption of SAP Mobile Platform REST services with pure HTTPS connectivity. The REST SDK provides simplified APIs for registration, exchange settings between client and server, and end-to-end tracing. The SDK also supports native push notifications.

The different components of the REST SDK are implemented as static runtime libraries and each component can be used independently.

The REST SDK supports the following functionalities:

Initialize client connection
User on-boarding or registration
Setting exchange such as setting configurations on SCC
Customization resource bundle
Security configurations - Basic authentication, SSO certificate authentication, anonymous access, network edge (SiteMinder authentication - always asynchronous), non-network edge, single SSL and mutual SSL authentication
End-to-end tracing
Native notification support for iOS and Android platforms
CAPTCHA support (asynchronous only)
Non network edge authentication support for iOS and Android platforms

Feature differences between On-Premise and Cloud versions

Differences between On-Premise and Cloud functionality

The table provides the list of features supported in On-Premise and/or Cloud versions.

Feature Support	On-Premise	Cloud
Notification of Customization resource bundle	No	Yes
Registration is required	No	Yes
CAPTCHA support (asynchronous)	No	Yes
BTX upload	Yes	No
Resource bundles configuration at application connection level	Yes (only at application connection level)	Yes
Mutual SSL (between client and SAP Mobile Platform server)	Yes	No
Network edge authentication	Yes	No
HTTP Note: The default connectivity is HTTPS.	Yes	No
End-to-end tracing	Yes	No