103 Chapter 5: Flex Data Access You can use Adobe® FlexTM data access components in MXML or ActionScript to work with three types of services: HTTP (REST-style) services, web services, and remote object services. You create data access components in MXML or ActionScript. Topics About data access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Comparing Flex data access to other technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 About data access The Flex SDK contains features for accessing server-side data. Flex data access components are based on a service- oriented architecture (SOA). These components use remote procedure calls to interact with server environments, such as PHP, Adobe ColdFusion, and Microsoft ASP.NET, to provide data to Flex applications and send data to back-end data sources. Depending on the types of interfaces you have to a particular server-side application, you can connect to a Flex application by using one of the following methods: · · · HTTP GET or POST by using the HTTPService component Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) compliant web services by using the WebService component Adobe Action Message Format (AMF) remoting services by using the RemoteObject component Note: Another common name for an HTTP service is a REST-style web service. REST stands for Representational State Transfer, an architectural style for distributed hypermedia systems. For more information about REST, see www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm.