Data Object services overview

A Data Object Service consists of Data Object resources that correspond to business entities (ABL user-defined classes or persistent procedures). Each Data Object resource consists of one or more Data Object operations that correspond to ABL operations (methods or internal procedures).

Data Object services use Progress Application Server (PAS) for OpenEdge and Progress OpenEdge databases. PAS for OpenEdge is both an application server and a Web Server. The application server contains the Data Object interfaces to ABL resources (procedures, classes, or, database tables). The Web Server contains one or more ABL Web Applications. Each ABL Web Application consists of one or more Data Object services.

You can create a new ABL Web App project or convert an existing OpenEdge project into an ABL Web App project. Before you create an ABL Web App project, you must set up the development environment.

You can choose to create a WebHandler-based or a REST-based Data Object service. A WebHandler-based Data Object service uses a WEB transport for client connections, while a REST-based service uses a REST transport.