Oracle Mobile Application Framework (MAF)

Mobile application development is getting competitive with lots of new products and platforms. What makes it more competitive is that the client stresses on aggressive timelines. Most of the customers expect their mobile application to come live in weeks rather than months, as they know that delay of each day means their competitor will be catching up. Therefore, the customers would prefer a rapid mobile application development, which, at same time, do not compromise on security and features. And hence, the mobile solution vendors and developers are looking for ways to accelerate the mobile application design and development to meet the aggressive timelines.

Oracle’s Mobile Application Framework (MAF) is the latest Oracle technology that help in accelerating mobile application development.

When it comes to mobilizing enterprise systems, there are several factors or challenges that need to be addressed. Mobile development technologies, existing enterprise security, leveraging existing skills, integration concerns and performance are few to mention. Addressing all these makes the entire mobile solution framework difficult. This is where the Oracle’s Mobile Application Framework provides an end-to-end platform for enterprise mobility.

Oracle MAF is Oracle’s hybrid mobile application development framework that can be used to develop both iOS and Android apps with a single source code. MAF is Oracle’s strategic mobile application development platform. MAF uses the standard based technologies like HTML5, CSS3, Java and JavaScript for application development. Java forms the core of business logic. Thus, it is easier for the developers to adapt to Oracle MAF using the existing skill set.

Oracle MAF has a MVC framework and uses declarative components for User Interface development. This increases the developers’ productivity. Oracle’s MAF assists in accessing device features like camera, contacts, GPS etc. using inbuilt Cordova Plugin. MAF is available as a plugin for both JDeveloper 12.1.3 and Eclipse IDEs. MAF also supports development of applications that can work in offline mode. Using local SQLite database, the mobile app can work in offline mode by accessing data from the encrypted local database. Another feature of Offline functionality is ability to store user credentials in SQLite database in encrypted manner in order to enable offline authentication to enterprise applications.