Re: IBM i authentication and RESTful web service design

Hi Nathan,

It will take me some time to think about the questions you raised, and I will consider the issues raised as I explore futher. I admit to being a newbie to all of this. 

What I have in mind is building single page applications (SPAs) using the REST services provided by IBM i Integrated Web Services.
1. Develop the client side of the SPA using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, JSON and a JavaScript framework (e.g., Angular).
2. Develop the server side of the SPA using REST services provided by IBM i Integrated Web Services to access COBOL business logic and DB2\IFS data resources.

This approach might be a good approach for our shop because:

1. We would get the benefits of more recent technologies compared to the CGI approach. The CGI approach is still a good approach. Our shop might end up using it after all. However, we don't currently have any CGI skills or CGI applications to maintain, so this is the best possible time to consider alternatives to the CGI approach. If we can effectively use more recent technologies than CGI for web development, and that's still an "if," I don't see why we wouldn't to do so.

2. Our IBM i COBOL developers would be able to develop web and mobile apps without introducing a new server-side code base into our shop. This is important because our shop currently does all web and mobile development using .NET. Our .NET developers have been using the .NET Data Provider to develop web pages for IBM i data for years. There is neither a perceived need, nor a desire from a maintenance perspective, to introduce another server-side language such as Java or PHP for developing web page front ends to IBM I data. But this has a tradeoff: an IBM i COBOL developer has to learn .NET in order to become a web or mobile developer, and once they learn .NET they usually stop being IBM i COBOL developers. SPAs using REST services that expose COBOL business logic would let our IBM i developers become web and mobile developers without having to learn .NET and without giving up COBOL development.

Still, I will look into the questions you raised as I explore the possibilities of SPAs using REST services via IBM i Integrated Web Services. 

Thanks,
Kelly

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nathan Andelin
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2015 8:33 AM
To: Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: Re: [WEB400] IBM i authentication and RESTful web service design

On Sat, May 16, 2015 at 1:34 PM, Kelly Cookson <KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> I really think the IBM i integrated web services tools might be the 
> right solution for our shop.


Think again! I question whether the IWS will be adequate for web applications. Simple, public web services, fine. But for database maintenance, transaction processing, and reports?

I read the 3 articles about IWS, along with other ones you referenced. I concluded that neither REST nor the IWS would be adequate for application modernization.

I could relate to Part 3 in the IWS series because student information systems is our business. Say you need to maintain 500 database tables, and a response from the server is needed for and average of 10 I/O operations; Would you configure 500 service programs and 5,000 procedures under IWS?

Do you grant authorities to IBM i resources to specific users, and user groups? Would it really be a good idea to run all your web services under 1 generic user profile?

Do you have different database environments where each has a different library list? Would it really be a good idea to run all your web services under a single library list?

Say you have a web service that provides five and ten day forecasts. High, low temperatures, and average temperatures, relative humidity, sunny, partly sunny, mostly cloudy, reported per day. IWS doesn't appear to support hierarchically structured output.

What do you do about data transfers that may exceed the number of rows in an array?

What sort of REST interface supports complex filter conditions such as get me the list of students where district equals 'XXX' and school equals 'XXX'
and fiscal year equals 2015 and grading term equals 4 and last name begins with 'A' and first name begins with 'A' and grade level equals 7?

Just trying to provoke thought.
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