What is Livecycle about?
Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (ES) is a suite of J2EE-based J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) server software products from Adobe Systems Incorporated. LiveCycle ES combines its PDF (Portable Document Format) technology and Flex (Flash-based UI technology) to develop "customer engagement applications" that provide end users with a dynamic and intuitive user experience that can be used inside or outside the firewall, in both online or offline environments. LiveCycle "ES" (Enterprise Suite) is the newest version of LiveCycle software and currently available in pre-release on the Adobe Developer website.
The products included with LiveCycle ES can be broadly classified into tooling products and LiveCycle ES "solution components" which include many of the SOA components used to develop LiveCycle applications.
Tooling
LiveCycle Workbench ES is an Eclipse-based development environment for developing LiveCycle applications, which include form templates (PDF and Flash based), process designs, integrations with data sources and other applications, web services, and other types of applications services. It includes a repository for check in/check out capabilities, and LiveCycle ES applications are exported to a production environment via an archive file. LiveCycle Workbench ES includes the Adobe LiveCycle Designer functionality, which remains Adobe's standalone form design tool that is included in the Adobe Acrobat Professional version.
LiveCycle ES "solution components" are the products that contain many of the SOA services used to develop LiveCycle ES applications. There are many types of services available within the solution components including those needed to capture information, manage processes, secure information, invoke web services, create documents, route approvals, optimize processes, integrate with other applications and data sources, etc.
The solution components leverage shared "foundation" services as well, which include administration and configuration services, service orchestration, invocation methods across solution components, and encryption services.
