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Oracle9iAS Wireless Best Practices

This chapter describes Oracle9iAS Wireless best practices. The topics include:

8.1 Development Best Practices

This section describes development best practices. The topics include:

8.1.1 Use Hosted Instance to Test Applications

Since it takes some effort to install the appropriate Oracle9iAS Wireless infrastructure to test your multi-channel applications for all mobile browsers, Short Message Service (SMS) devices and voice, a hosted instance is available on the Mobile Studio. The URL to the hosted instance is:

http://studio.oraclemobile.com.

8.1.2 Download Up-to-Date Device Simulators for Testing Applications

Some devices constantly change their presentation format (represented by corresponding stylesheets in Oracle9iAS Wireless). Hence, you should always download and test with the latest simulators for the devices you are developing for. You can generally go to the device manufacturers web site to download the simulators.

8.1.3 Use Oracle9iAS Wireless XML

If you are developing a multi-channel application, use Oracle9iAS Wireless XML. The value that Oracle9iAS Wireless XML adds is the ability to write an application once for all channels. You need not develop separate presentation code for each mobile device your application supports. Hence, development effort and cycles are reduced as the complexities of developing for each specific device browser is removed.

8.1.4 Use JSPs to Generate Oracle9iAS Wireless XML

For J2EE applications, we recommend that you output Oracle9iAS Wireless XML using JSPs. The presentation model parallels that of using JSPs to output HTML for HTML browsers. In the JSPs, replace HTML tags with Oracle9iAS Wireless XML. Your J2EE applications can then be delivered to any device including voice.

8.1.5 Use the HTTP Adapter Over a Custom Adaptor

The HTTP adapter allows you to separate the application logic from the application server, and use the application server as a smart browser. This method allows for easier application management, easier application server upgrades, and simpler porting.

8.1.6 Use Hosted Wireless Web Services (Mobile Modules) for Rapid Development

Oracle9iAS Wireless offers location and messaging web services (also called Mobile Modules) as added value to your wireless applications. These services location-enable and message-enable your applications without requiring you to write the implementation logic for them. It is possible to deploy these services internally in your own deployment of Oracle9iAS Wireless. However, Oracle offers hosted versions of these services, which your applications can connect to over the Internet. Using the hosted versions reduces your development and deployment cycles as you do not need to deploy and provision your own version of these services.

8.2 Deployment Best Practices

This section describes deployment best practices. It features the following topics:

8.2.1 Deploy Own Wireless Infrastructure or Use Hosted Versions

If you wish to have low initial costs, you can deploy your Oracle9iAS Wireless (middle tier) and applications in-house. Then, all the other infrastructures can be hosted by a service provider. Oracle provides wireless infrastructure as a hosted service.

8.2.2 Deploy Your Applications in Phases

The best method in deployment is to take a phased approach, where you release new channels in phases. Deploy channels based on your goals, for example, sales force PDA users who require your application urgently or a channel, which returns the quickest adoption rate or ROI. A common approach is to start with the PDA channel and then to voice.

8.2.3 Use SMS for Targeted Content in Specific Geographical Regions

SMS provides a way to make a simple request to get necessary information and is widely used in Europe and Asia. It is easy to get distracted with fancy images when developing for PDAs. SMS makes sure that only the vital content is made available, and the content is received in the most concise manner.

8.2.4 Use Oracle9iAS Web Cache with Oracle9iAS Wireless

Using Oracle9iAS Web Cache with Oracle9iAS Wireless can save bandwidth and server CPU cycles. The savings are in terms of device adaptation costs due to the fact that content can be shared across users and sessions. Additionally, applications are transformed only once (per device) from its multi-channel Oracle9iAS Wireless XML format.

8 Oracle9iAS Wireless Best Practices