SyncML with Android and PHP Web Service

Question

I was just curious if anyone has used SyncML (Synchronization Markup Language) and if it's a good standard to use.

We'd need it for synchronising information from a tablet device to a web server (via web service) and vice versa.

Is SyncML too bloated? I was looking at some of the SyncML APIs and was quite daunting. So the big choice is to use this standard or build an in-house solution.

Even if I did do it in-house, we'd have to create some sort of way to define the data we're sending up, so definitely looking at building an XML schema, or alternatively use JSON.

Any opinions? Ideas?

Answer 1

SyncML and ActiveSync (and possibly some other prepared solution) have a signifficant advantage: There are some implementations that are probably stable. Another signifficant advantage is that the protocols are designed and tested. If you design your own protocol, you'll have to think about all possible situations in synchronization. So, even if your own protocol can be a bit simpler, you probably have to do more work and the result can be less stable.