Adobe LiveCycle Data Services 3

Welcome to the Adobe® LiveCycle® Data Services 3 beta on Adobe Labs. You are all invited to participate in this early preview release.

Adobe LiveCycle Data Services server makes it possible to easily integrate Flex with Java/J2EE based applications.

Adobe LiveCycle Data Services 3 beta delivers many new features and improvements to existing features in three main themes: Productivity gains, Quality of Service, and Integration. For an overview of the features included in the next release, please read Anil Channappa’s What’s New in Livecycle Data Services 3.

Developers will notice a new development experience working with Adobe Flash® Builder™ 4 beta and Adobe LiveCycle Data Services 3 beta. Flash Builder 4 beta creates a fiber model to ease development of data driven applications. The fiber modeling Plug-in extends this capability and streamlines the client-server development experience. Please use this opportunity to explore this development experience and provide us with feedback and suggestions.

Download and Discuss

Please remember that this is beta software and there will be bugs, incomplete features, some performance issues and documentation issues, so we suggest that you only use it for testing and exploratory purposes.

Getting Started

Follow these steps to begin experiencing the LiveCycle Data Services 3 beta:

Download the LiveCycle Data Services beta
Read Anil Channappa’s What’s New in LiveCycle Data Services 3
View our Getting Started videos
Read the Documentation
Check out the sample applications that are included in the installation.
Report bugs or feature requests in the LiveCycle Data Services public bug database
Ask questions and share your feedback in the LiveCycle Data Services 3 forum

Please note that your submission of comments, ideas, feature requests and techniques on this and other Adobe maintained forums, as well as Adobe's right to use such materials, is governed by the Terms of Use.

Community

Below you'll find references and links to help you participate in the LiveCycle Data Services user community.

Online Forum

Ask questions, discuss, and share feedback with other users in the online forums.

Visit the Labs forum for LiveCycle Data Services 3

Please note that your submission of comments, ideas, feature requests and techniques on this and other Adobe maintained forums, as well as Adobe's right to use such materials, is governed by the Terms of Use.

Public Bug Database

Report bugs or feature requests in the LiveCycle Data Services public bug database.

Visit the LiveCycle Data Services public database

Resources

User Groups and Adobe Community Experts

If you want to learn more about releases on Labs as well as other Adobe technologies, visiting a user group or connecting with an Adobe Community Expert is a great place to start.

Documentation

Please provide us with any feedback or suggestions about the documentation through the online forums.

FAQ

What are the goals of the preview?

The Adobe LiveCycle Data Services 3 beta release is intended to enable you to explore new capabilities in the product. We have significantly revamped the developer productivity experience by providing a workflow for model driven development of Flex applications. Please provide us feedback (things that you like as well as things that you would see it work differently) through the bugbase and forums.

Where can I find out more about the features in Adobe LiveCycle Data Services 3?

Getting started videos, Anil Channappa’s What’s New in Adobe LiveCycle Data Service 3 article, Sample demo are good resources to start. You should also check out Christophe Coenraets' Blog.

When will the final version of Adobe LiveCycle Data Service 3 be available?

Adobe is not yet disclosing the final release date for Adobe LiveCycle Data Services 3, however we expect it to be before the end of 2009.

Will the Flash Builder 4 fiber modeling Plug-in work with BlazeDS or previous releases Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ES?

You will need to use Adobe LiveCycle Data Service 3, and the plug-in will not work with previous version of BlazeDS or LiveCycle Data Services. However, services from previous releases of BlazeDS and LiveCycle Data Services should work with LiveCycle Data Services 3 without any changes. Also, please note the fiber modeling plug-in requires that you use the Flash Builder 4 beta and will not work with Flex Builder 3.

What is Fiber and how is it used in LiveCycle Data Services?

Fiber is a codename for a suite of technologies that enables model driven development of Flex applications. In a nutshell, Fiber consists of 3 things:

An Application Modeling language (referred to as the "Adobe Data Model")
Tools for working with models and associated code-generation
Run-time for the model

Flash Builder 4 internally creates a fiber Model to simplify development, and enhance productivity, of data driven flex applications. LiveCycle Data Services 3 provides a plug-in to Flash Builder 4 and the Fiber run-time to streamline the model driven development lifecycle. Hence, application development is a 4 step process (of course iterative):

Step 1: Use the modeling plug-in to create or enhance existing fiber models.

Step 2: Deploy the model directly from Flash Builder 4 to your LiveCycle Data Services 3 server.

Step 3: LiveCycle Data Services 3 server uses the Fiber model to provide data management based persistence out of the box.

Step 4: Develop your Flex application based on the model It automates and simplifies the plumbing infrastructure required for a flex application to communicate with server-side business logic.

Watch Getting Started Videos to learn more about this.

What is RDS and why do I need it?

RDS is new to LiveCycle Data Services, and means Remote Development Services. This is the service that needs to be enabled on the server to enable Flash Builder 4, including the modeling plug-in, to communicate with the server (LCDS3 and BlazeDS). For security reason, RDS is turned off by default. Refer to the Getting Started Guide for more information on enabling RDS.

How do I get the modeling capability for Flash Builder4 with LiveCycle Data Services 3?

The modeling capability is available as a Flash Builder 4 plug-in. You can download it here. Refer to the Getting Started Guide for more details on installing the plug-in.

Where can I find a BlazeDS build that works with Flash Builder 4?

We have added RDS to BlazeDS. This enables introspecting BlazeDS destinations in Flash Builder 4. Download the "BlazeDS" beta 1 build.

Will the modeling functionality work with prior releases of LiveCycle Data Services and BlazeDS?

No, you will need to use LiveCycle Data Services 3 or the latest BlazeDS build with Flash Builder 4. However, you should be able to migrate your applications to use LiveCycle Data Services 3 or "the new" BlazeDS without any changes.

System Requirements

Platform Support

Windows XP and Vista, x86, x64
Windows 2003 x86, x64
Windows 2008 x64
RedHat Linux AS 5 x64
Suse Enterprise Linux 10 x64
Mac OS X 10.5

AppServer Support

Apache Tomcat 6.0.x
JBoss Application Server 4.x, 5
BEA Weblogic 9,10, 10.3
IBM WebSphere Application Server 6.1.x, 7

JDK

Sun JDK 5,6
BEA JRockit 5,6
IBM JDK 5,6

Release Notes

This release of LiveCycle Data Services 3 is prerelease, beta-quality software and is designed for evaluation purposes only. The software contained within the downloads is not yet complete; but, many additions to the product are fully implemented and ready for you to try and discuss.

See what's new in LiveCycle Data Services 3