Ajax Connectivity - Overcoming Data-Centric RIA Challenges

The transition of business applications from client-server to web based applications has brought significant improvement in terms of accessibility, deployment and maintenance but the typical data intensiveness and richness of those applications also brought many challenges in the development process.

This is the first entry of a series of posts that will go over the major pains such as data-binding, state management, security and Ajax connectivity which is discussed here and how Visual WebGui eases those pains.

One of the defining characteristics of rich, data-centric web applications is the prevalence of complex controls. Ajax is the premier methodology for dealing with the server-client interaction constraints of numerous controls by enabling controls to individually and asynchronously communicate with the server upon interaction, without interfering with or refreshing the state of the whole page or application.

However, while Ajax brings major improvement in richness and interactivity it also brings higher complexity when it comes to development and since the communication of the controls with the server is done asynchronously the developer needs to make many decisions about the interactions themselves, the specific communication and the data from the server for each control. In addition, Ajax relies heavily on controls speaking to controls and the server independently which negatively affects bandwidth.  It also means as each control is acting independently and opens a communication channel, it is more difficult to secure.
 
Visual WebGui resolves these issues by providing built-in Ajax allowing the developer to enjoy the benefits of Ajax with minimal knowhow and effort. With VWG’s Ajax Connectivity Management and through utilizing its thin and unique Internet protocol, VWG enables the application itself, not the control, to speak directly to the server asynchronously. Ajax connectivity for VWG is optimized by two major practices, it communicates only the differences (bringing what it needs when requested) and performs these tasks in batches, freeing up bandwidth. Additionally, as VWG keeps all the information on the server, it means the app is completely secured-by-design, only showing you the info requested and no more.