Funambol

Funambol Data Synchronization Server

Architectural Overview
Funambol Technical Paper TP100 March 2006

Important Information
© Copyright Funambol, Inc. 2006. All rights reserved. The information contained in this publication is subject to US and international copyright laws and treaties. Except as permitted by law, no part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted by any processor means without the prior written consent of Funambol, Inc. Funambol, Inc. has taken care in preparation of this publication, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind. Funambol, Inc. does not guarantee that any information contained herein is and will remain accurate or that use of the information will ensure correct and faultless operation of the relevant software, service orequipment. Funambol, Inc., its agents and employees shall not be held liable for any loss or damage whatsoever resulting from reliance on the information contained herein. Funambol and Sync4j are trademarks and registered trademarks of Funambol, Inc. All other products mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. Published by Funambol, Inc., 643 Bair Island Road, Suite 305, RedwoodCity, CA 94063

FUNAMBOL ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW

Introduction
The purpose of this overview is to provide a technical foundation for architects and developers to understand how the Funambol synchronization server is built. Because it is intended for the software developer, we start at the core of the engine and work out towards the edge and the user features. This overview should besupplemented with several other documents in the Funambol library, in particular: • • • DS Server Quick Start Guide DS Server Developer's Guide DM Server Developer's Guide

These and other documents, plus the source code itself, can be downloaded from
www.funambol.com/opensource.

Core Architecture
The Funambol core architecture is implemented in layers, as shown below:

The framework layerimplements and provides protocols, horizontal services, and the synchronization engine, on top of which the transport and application layers are developed. The application layer consists of the server that accepts and processes SyncML messages. The server relies on the transport layer to receive messages delivered using different protocols, such as HTTP, SMTP, OBEX, and so on. Currently, the server isimplemented as an Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) service deployable in a J2EE-compliant application server.

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FUNAMBOL ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW

The Framework Layer
The framework layer consists of several packages, the most important of which are shown below:

Core Package – the foundation classes used to represent a message. This module provides for the translation of an XML stream into anobject tree; conversely, an object representing a message can be converted into the corresponding XML representation. These classes check that a message is a valid SyncML message; however, this validity check guarantees only that the XML structure can represent a message, regardless of the context in which the message is processed. The scope of this check is to verify that the SyncML representationrules are observed. Protocol Package – a SyncML communication is a sequence of correlated messages that must follow additional rules, as specified by the SyncML protocol. This module handles the processing of such messages to ensure compliance with the protocol. Security and Logging Packages – this module implements logging and security services. For the security aspects, Funambol adheres to theJava Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) delivered with JDK 1.4. You can develop and use your own authentication and authorization policy independent of that implemented by Funambol. Engine Package – provides the logic for the synchronization server. The default implementation provides a set of rules, including the following: • • • • Identify the source and destination of the data to...