Personify Data Services (PDS) was developed using “WCF Data Services” (formerly ADO.NET Data Services) to enable OData protocol (http://www.odata.org) against existing Personify APIs.
PDS involves several technologies behind the scenes. The following is an overview of the architecture:
PDS can be easily developed using the Personify WSD. Using the Personify WSD, we can design/develop entities (units of data) which are mapped against Personify APIs. Once the model (entity model) is complete, it can be built (compiled) and published in the form of an “OData” service (Personify Data Service).
PDS is simply a WCF Data Service (which is mainly used to develop OData services) which works with Entity Framework (EF) provider to work with data. Using OData and its URI conventions, we can directly fetch data from URL (using any web browser).
The URL/URI gets translated to LINQ expression (by WCF Data Service) and will be sent to “Personify Entity Framework Provider” (custom EF provider deduced from Microsoft’s EF provider architecture). Personify EF provider translates LINQ expressions to various parameters (Personify API parameters) and are sent to “Personify ADO.NET Provider” (custom ADO.NET provider). Personify ADO.NET Provider works with Personify APIs to work with data.
For
more information on installing Personify Data Services, please see the
Personify Installation Guide.