Integrating REST services with an inventory database and SQL using Android

Question

I'm getting started on a contracting project bid, and I was hoping for some advice on the best way to go about it.

I am being asked to develop an Android application for inventory management for a small company (no more than a few thousand SKUs at most) for Android tablets and I'm trying to come up with the architecture for the system.

I was thinking of using MS Server 2008 hosting a MSSQL database. This database would be exposed via REST services, as the DB would need to be accessible remotely (through Android tablets by salespeople).

I haven't used SQL much in the past, but I am thinking this is likely the best solution, along with REST for performing remote DB transactions.

Basically the functionality would be to view stock, order items, check prices, etc.

I would appreciate any advice anyone has on this topic.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I recommend you go over this article: Creating an OData API for StackOverflow including XML and JSON in 30 minutes. Then, consider the odata4j project.

Answer 2

Also, here is an interesting lecture about clienting REST for android:

http://developer.android.com/videos/index.html#v=xHXn3Kg2IQE

Answer 3

I would go for Oracle Application Express. They have build in Jquery Mobile and easy to expose a report list as Rest web service. Then use Phinegap and Jquery for Android apps.

Take look my quick sample: http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=5rfuq-e-_Ws

You are not building an enterprise system....give a try Oracle Apex...you will be addicted to it.

Phonegap, Jquery Mobile and SQLite as local database on Android tablet .... Only if you need offline capability. Otherwise just use Oracle Apex with build in Jquery Mobile will be super solution!

Answer 4

I recommend you take a look at restSQL, an ultra-lightweight persistence framework. It currently supports MySQL and PostgreSQL. See http://restsql.org. It runs in a standard Java EE container, e.g. Apache Tomcat.

restSQL is not a conventional ORM. It does not present an object-oriented view of the database. It presents flat or hierarchical "views" of relational database tables. These views are query-able and updatable through a simple REST-based HTTP or Java API. The HTTP interface is based on REST principles, which use HTTP’s built-in features, rather than abstracting away from them.

Answer 5

I have used http://www.remobjects.com/ for this. Create the server in .net, delphi and clients in anything.

Also, is possible to use just http://www.remobjects.com/da/relativity.aspx if not have heavy logic in the middle-tier.