The issue with the predominant multi-tier data center application architecture is that it is designed with a browser in mind. Mobile device management and other popular disciplines do not address how to bridge the gap between legacy apps and heterogeneous mobile platforms, operating systems and programming languages used today.

This paper outlines how to develop and deploy a server side architecture to enable the mobile application economy via REST APIs with JSON, contrasts native vs. web-based client architectures, and the resulting impacts on security, protocol mediation and data control.

Read on to learn how mobile apps, especially native apps, are different than the client/server world we're familiar with, even though they happen to use HTTP for communication.