PMF Application Center

Overview

Learn about the Persistent Mobile Foundation Application Center: what it is for, the different components and features, and how to use the console and the client.

The sale of mobile devices now exceeds that of personal computers. Consequently, mobile applications become critical for businesses.
The PMF Application Center is a tool to make sharing mobile applications within an organization easier.

You can use the PMF Application Center as an enterprise application store. With the PMF Application Center, you can target some mobile applications to particular groups of users within the company.

A development team can also use the PMF Application Center during the development phase of an application to share applications with testers, designers, or executives in the company. In such a scenario, it makes collaboration easier between all the people who are involved in the development process.

You can also review the PMF Application Center tutorial.

Concept of PMF Application Center

PMF Application Center can be used as an Enterprise application store and is a means of sharing information among different team members within a company.

The concept of PMF Application Center is similar to the concept of the Apple public App Store or the Android Market, except that it targets only private usage within a company.

By using PMF Application Center, users from the same company or organization download applications to mobile phones or tablets from a single place that serves as a repository of mobile applications.

PMF Application Center targets mobile applications that are installed on the device itself. Those applications can be native applications that are built by using the device SDK or hybrid applications that mix native and web content. PMF Application Center does not target mobile web applications; such applications are delivered to the mobile device web browser through a URL like a website.

In the current version, PMF Application Center supports applications that are built for the Google Android platform, the Apple iOS platform.

BlackBerry OS is not supported by the current version of the PMF Application Center.

PMF Application Center manages mobile applications; it supports any kind of Android, iOS, including applications that are built on top of the PMF.

You can use the PMF Application Center as part of the development process of an application. A typical scenario of PMF Application Center is a team building a mobile application; the development team creates a new version of an Android, iOS application. The development team wants this new version to be reviewed and tested by the extended team. A developer goes to PMF Application Center console and uploads the new version of the application to PMF Application Center. As part of this process, the developer can enter a description of the application version. For example, the description could mention the elements that the development team added or fixed from the previous version. The new version of the application is then available to the other members of the team.

Another person, for example, a beta tester, can launch PMF Application Center installer application, the mobile client, to locate this new version of a mobile application in the list of available applications and install it on his mobile device. After testing the new version, the beta tester can rate the application and submit feedback. The feedback is visible to the developer from the PMF Application Center console.

PMF Application Center is a convenient way to share mobile applications within a company or a group; it is a means of sharing information among team members.

Specific platform requirements

Different operating systems impose specific requirements for deploying, installing, or using applications on the appropriate mobile devices.

Android

The mobile device must be configured for installation from unknown sources. The corresponding toggle can be found in the Android Settings. See User Opt-in for apps from unknown sources for details.

In PMF Application Center, applications have an internal and a commercial version number. The internal version number is used to distinguish which version is newer while the commercial version is only used as an informative display string. For Android applications, the internal version is the android:versionCode from the application manifest, and it must be an integer.

iOS

All applications that are managed through PMF Application Center must be packaged for “Ad Hoc Distribution”. With an iOS developer account, you can share your application with up to 100 iOS devices. With an iOS enterprise account, you can share your in-house application with an unlimited number of iOS devices. See iOS Developer Program and iOS Enterprise Program for details. In PMF Application Center, applications have an internal and a commercial version number. The internal version number is used to distinguish which version is newer while the commercial version is used only as an informative display string. For iOS applications, the internal version is the CFBundleVersion from the application manifest Info.plist. The version number must have the following format: a, or a.b, or a.b.c, where a, b, c are non-negative integers, and a is not 0.

General architecture

The PMF Application Center is composed of these main elements: a server-side component, a repository, an administration console, and a mobile client application.

Server-side component

The server-side component is a Java™ Enterprise application that must be deployed in a web application server such as IBM WebSphere or Apache Tomcat.

The server-side component consists of an administration console and a mobile application. This mobile application installs the mobile applications available to the client-side component.

The web console and the installer application communicate through REST services with the server component.

Several services compose the PMF Application Center server-side component; for example, a service that lists available applications, a service that delivers the application binary files to the mobile device, or a service that registers feedback and ratings.

Repository

A database that stores information such as which application is installed on which devices, the feedback about applications, and the mobile application binary files. The Application Center application is associated with the database when you configure the Application Center for a particular web application server and a supported database.

Administration console

A web console through which administrators can manage applications, user access rights to install applications, user feedback about mobile applications, and details about applications installed on devices. See The PMF Application Center console.

Mobile client application

You use the mobile client to install applications on a mobile device and to send feedback about an application to the server. See The mobile client.

The following figure shows an overview of the architecture.

PMF Application Center architecture

From the PMF Application Center console, you can take the following actions:

Upload different versions of mobile applications.
Remove unwanted applications.
Control access to applications: Each application is associated with the list of people who can install the application.
View feedback that mobile users have sent about an application.
Obtain information about applications installed on a device.
Make an application inactive so that it is not visible in the available applications for download.

From the mobile client, you can take the following actions:

List available mobile applications.
Install a new application on a device.
Send feedback about an application.

The PMF Application Center supports applications for Android, iOS devices. Therefore, the mobile client comes in separate versions for Android, iOS.

The Android and iOS mobile clients are built on the PMF. To learn how to configure the PMF Application Center server-side component on various Java application servers after the product is installed and build PMF applications for the PMF Application Center client, see Configuring PMF Application Center after installation.

Preliminary information

To use the PMF Application Center, you must configure security settings, start the web application server where PMF is installed, start the PMF Application Center console, and log in.

When you install PMF, the PMF Application Center is automatically installed in the specified application server.

If you install the PMF Application Center in WebSphere Application Server Liberty profile, the server is created in installation-directory/server.

After the installation is complete, you must configure the security settings for the applications. See Configuring user authentication for PMF Application Center or, if you are using LDAP authentication, Managing users with LDAP.

Example: starting the server and the PMF Application Center console on Liberty profile

Start the Liberty server by using the server command that is in the installation-directory/server/wlp/bin directory.
```
server start worklightServer
```
When the server is running, start the PMF Application Center console by entering this address in your browser: http://localhost:9080/appcenterconsole/
Log in. By default, two users are defined for the installation of the PMF Application Center on Apache Tomcat or WebSphere Application Server Liberty profile:
- demo with password demo
- appcenteradmin with password admin

For more information

To use the PMF Application Center console, refer to The PMF Application Center console.

To install and run the mobile client on the following operating systems, see:

Android: See Installing the client on an Android mobile device.
iOS operating system: See Installing the client on an iOS mobile device.

What’s next

Follow these topics to use the appcenter mobile client; send notifications to installed applications; learn about the appcenter console, command-line tool, the mobile client; and setting log levels.

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