Migrating applications created on IBM® Bluemix to IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation

You can migrate native applications that were developed on Bluemix® Mobile Services to IBM MobileFirst™ Platform Foundation.

The existing Bluemix Mobile Services app must use a custom identity provider. To provide this security for the app when it is running on IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation, you must modify some server-side components.

To migrate the application to IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation, you must complete the following tasks:
  • Adapt the server-side authentication code, by using one of the following HTTP-based custom authentication methods:
    • Security realm within a Java™ adapter
    • Oauth TAI
    • A protected Node.js resource
  • Migrate the client application. Migrating the client application includes the following steps:
    • Installing the IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation SDK, including its associated framework. For iOS applications, you also install a compatibility framework.
    • Making configuration changes to your Xcode project
    • Modifying the application code to remove references that are specific to the Bluemix Mobile Services environment, replacing them with references required in the IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation environment
For iOS applications, an API, called the compatibility API, translates Bluemix Mobile Services calls to IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation calls. The compatibility framework communicates with the MobileFirst iOS client framework, which in turn communicates with the MobileFirst Server.