The server side of your mobile app is MobileFirst Server. MobileFirst Server gives you access to features like application management and application security, as well giving your mobile app secure access to your other backend systems through adapters.
You need to use MobileFirst Server throughout your app's lifecycle from development and test through to production deployment and maintenance. A preconfigured server is available for you to use when you develop your app. For information about the MobileFirst Development Server to use when you develop your app, see Setting up the MobileFirst Development Server.
The operations console is a web interface that you can use to view and edit the MobileFirst Server configurations. You can also access the MobileFirst Analytics Console from here.
The context root for the operations console in the development server is /mfpconsole.
The administration service is the main entry point for managing your apps. You can access the administration service through a web-based interface with the MobileFirst Operations Console. You can also access the administration service with the mfpadm command-line tool or the administration service REST API.
The runtime is the main entry point for a MobileFirst client app. The runtime is also the default authorization server for the IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation OAuth implementation.
In advanced and rare cases, you can have multiple instances of a device runtime in a single MobileFirst Server. Each instance has its own context root. The context root is used to display the name of a runtime in the operations console. Use multiple instances in cases where you require different server-level configuration such as secret keys for keystore.
If you have only one instance of a device runtime in MobileFirst Server, you do not typically need to know the runtime context root. For example, when you register an application to a runtime with the mfpdev app register command when the MobileFirst Server has only one runtime, the application is registered automatically to that runtime.
The push service is your main access point for push-related operations like push notifications and push subscriptions. To contact the push services, client apps use the URL of the runtime but replace the context root with /mfppush. You can configure and manage the push service with the MobileFirst Operations Console or the push service REST API.
If you run the push services in a separate application server from the MobileFirst runtime, you must route the push service traffic to the correct application server with your HTTP server.
IBM MobileFirst Analytics is an optional component that provides a scalable analytics feature that you can access from the MobileFirst Operations Console. This analytics feature lets you search for patterns, problems and platform usage statistics across logs and events that are collected from devices, apps, and servers.
From the MobileFirst Operations Console, you can define filters to enable or disable data forwarding to the analytics service. You can also filter the type of information that is sent. On the client side, you can use the client-side log capture API to send events and data to the analytics server. For more information about the client-side log capture API, see Logger SDK.
For information about installing and configuring MobileFirst Server for your on-premises environment, see Installing IBM MobileFirst Platform Server.
For information, see Deploying MobileFirst Server to the cloud