Mobile Applications and Service-oriented Architecture Integration: A Practical Approach in Incorporating Mobility with Enterprise Information System

Mobile Applications and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) are two aspects of Computer Science which offer to Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) more agility and flexibility in order to follow the constant evolution of enterprises business. However, the inadequacy of hardware resources and wireless network availability and bandwidth constitutes a major constraint when developing any mobile application. The challenge is exacerbated for developers when trying to integrate these applications with EIS which are naturally heavier. This document presents this integration in the context of an EIS built on SOA. Added to the basic tools needed for local data storage and communication with the server, a mediator (on the device) is introduced to facilitate interactions between the application and the service. We also study reasons which lead us to the choice of implementing a gateway on the server, in order to facilitate the service consumption.