Create a Backend in Oracle Mobile Hub

With Oracle Mobile Hub, you can develop mobile client-server applications and deploy several APIs designed to support tasks like user management, database access, location services, analytics, etc. These APIs make integrations with other Oracle Cloud solutions, REST Services, and mobile client applications possible.

About Backends

A backend within Oracle Mobile Hub is a group of secure APIs and other resources used for developing client-server mobile applications.

You can use Oracle Mobile Hub to group and manage different APIs that together define a backend.

In Oracle Mobile Hub, you can have multiple backends, each serving different client mobile applications. However, you can also have multiple APIs shared among different backends. The following image shows a typical backend architecture in Oracle Mobile Hub:

Description of the illustration mobile-backend-architecture.jpg

When a client mobile application accesses an API through Oracle Mobile Hub, it's always within the context of a backend. The application can authenticate using credentials defined within Oracle Mobile Hub (OAuth or basic HTTP authentication) specific to the backend or through an identity store (or social log-in provider) that is mediated by your mobile backend. If the called API includes calls to other APIs within the backend, the identity and credentials of the original caller are propagated through the chain of calls.

Working in backends helps you to visualize the resources available for the target apps and how they will work together. In addition, you can use the backend security context to test calls to your APIs, even in the earliest stages of development.

Create a Backend in Oracle Mobile Hub

In Oracle Mobile Hub, you can create backends to associate APIs and storage collections, and then integrate them with your client-side mobile applications.

To create a backend in Oracle Mobile Hub:

1. Sign in to Oracle Mobile Hub.
2. Click the menu icon, and then select Development, and then Backends.
3. Click New Backend.
4. Enter a name and a description for the backend.
5. Click Create.
   The backend is created and its Settings page opens.

After you create your backend, it should appear in the Backends section of Oracle Mobile Hub under Development.

Associate a Custom API with an Oracle Mobile Hub Backend

Before using your backend, you have the option to associate an API. You can use the Oracle Mobile Hub API Catalog to select the custom APIs you want to access with your backend. This catalog provides details about each API endpoint and documentation. It also lets you test your endpoints with sample data.

To associate APIs with your backend, make sure you are in the environment that contains the draft mobile backend.

1. Sign in to Oracle Mobile Hub.
2. Click the menu icon, and then expand Development and click Backends.
3. Select your backend and click Open.
4. Click APIs.
5. Click Select APIs.
6. Click the add icon for each API that you want to include in your backend.

Create a Storage Collection

Oracle Mobile Hub provides a storage API for storing media in the cloud. As a mobile application developer, you can use this API in your mobile application to store and retrieve objects, such as files, text, images, and JSON objects.

1. Open the Storage page either from a mobile backend or by clicking Storage in the side menu, and click New Collection.
2. Enter a name for your collection. This name is used to form the Universal Resource Identifier (URI) for the collection. Within the context of the API call, the collection name is referred to as the collection ID.
3. Choose the collection type: Shared or User Isolated. You can’t change the scope of the collection after is set.
4. If needed, enter a short description for the purpose of the collection, to be displayed in the list of collections, and then click Create.