Cloud Push - Overview

Introduction

Cloud Push is an extended push notification mechanism that provides asynchronous notifications to users when they are offline from the originating ICEfaces web-application.

Once a user registers for Cloud Push notifications in the web-application they can receive notifications in one of the supported formats when the web-application detects that they are no longer on-line in the web-application itself. This is determined to be the case anytime the web-application does not have an active push connection to the user's browser, either due to the user closing the browser, navigating away from the web-application, or even navigating to a new page within the web-application that does not have push enabled.

When a user receives a Cloud Push notification message they simply click on the notification itself (or an embedded link within the message) to automatically open their browser to the originating web-application page where the updated status will be displayed for them to review via normal ICEfaces web-application rendering.

Cloud Push Notification Providers

Cloud Push uses a notification provider architecture to support a variety of notification mechanisms. In order to support a particular notification type, its corresponding provider must be configured in the web-application.

The following providers are supported by the ICEfaces ICEpush library:

Email Notification Provider

The email notification provider supports sending notifications via email messages.

Native Mobile Platform Notification Providers

• Apple APNS - Sends native iOS notifications via the Apple Push Notification Service.
• Google GCM - Sends native Android notifications via Google Cloud Messaging (GCM).
• Microsoft WNS - Sends native Windows notifications via Windows Push Notification Services.

The native notification providers work in conjunction with the BridgeIt app. on mobile devices to deliver cloud-based notifications.

SMS Notification Providers

• Amazon SNS - Sends SMS messages via the Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service) cloud-based SMS gateway.
• Twilio SMS - Sends SMS messages via the Twilio cloud-based SMS gateway.

The SMS providers require a valid user account on the SMS gateway service to be used.

The Native Mobile Platform Providers and SMS Providers are included in ICEfaces EE only.