MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-FLASH, Use Manual, Page: 419 / 678

Data management (Flash Professional only) 419
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Create an intermediary object that resides on the server to act as a bridge between your
client and the public services you want to use. This approach offers several advantages:
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Public web services can be aggregated. With this approach you can provide fail-over
safety and load balancing when a request is made for data.
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You can control the flow of data in your application. If the web service goes away or
the URL is down, you can decide how to respond.
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Data can be optimized. Multiple requests can be cached.
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You can have custom error handling. You can determine what errors to send back to
the client.
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Data can be manipulated, converted, or combined. You can pull data from several
sources and return one data packet with the combined information.
Many of the SOAP-based applications that you build will use private web services hosted on
your server. After you determine the best way to implement and expose your own web
services, it is easy to make public web services available to your client application. When you
are in control of the server, you can offer a complete solution. The server is the ideal place for
business logic that can determine the best way to respond to requests for data and the results
that should be sent back to the client. This is also the most secure way to build an application.
The server can provide additional processing to make sure that users have access only to
certain services as well as protect the client from making calls to malicious services that can
return bad data.
For more information, see the DevNet article “Getting a Handle on Web Services” at
www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/articles/flmxpro_webservices.html .
Data management (Flash Professional
only)
You use the DataSet component for applications that handle managed data. The term
managed data refers to the ability to perform advanced operations on a local cache of data,
including multiple sorts, filters, finds, and offline caching. A managed data solution requires
more setup but gives you greater control over your data. In general, you should use a managed
data approach for the following scenarios:
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You need to apply multifield sorts, filters, or ranges to your data.
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You are building an application that provides the ability to work offline (changes to the
data are cached offline and can be applied at a later time).
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You want to receive changes from the server and apply them to your local cache of data.