Okay, so I’m currently developing an iphone app that I plan to take into production and scale. I’m a bit lost on the whole subject.
What is better to use: core data or sqlite? (as the local DB)
Also, can sqlite be used exclusively to communicate with my remote server as well? At first I thought it could but I’ve been reading that sqlite isn’t great to use on servers that get a massive amount of hits.
I’ve read that oracle, mysql, or mssql may be better to use on a remote server and that I can communicate with these servers via REST or SOAP.
I plan to be able to both read and write to a remote server. The files transferred will mostly be small data objects and pictures. Speed is of the essence, so I’d like to know which options are my fastest routes. Of course, I want the option to scale and not have performance take too much of a hit as well.
On the subject of Core Data vs sqlite see this question.
SQLite is a small and lite embedded SQL database engine. It’s not meant to used in server environments. In general, it’s not a good idea to communicate directly over the Internet. It’s more common to have some sort of process logic between the client code and the database to do a range of things like validate input, process business logic, security, etc. You can implement this sort of layer in REST, SOAP, or whatever you like. Since your clients will be mobile devices, a http based web service (like REST or SOAP) is a good idea as all mobility platforms have inbuilt API support for http messaging. There are lots and lots of options on the server depending on what type of server you want to setup and run with.
If your new to this, maybe you should read something like ‘Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture‘ by Martin Fowler to get a idea of what sort of design patterns people use to implement the server side layering.