1. An occasionally-connected application server comprising: a synchronization unit that synchronizes a set of data nodes being stored on the occasionally-connected application server with data nodes stored on a mobile client for an application provided by the server, the application employing an occasionally-connected data model that indicates the mobile client's anticipated usage of said data nodes before said data nodes are requested by the mobile client; and a conduit manager that translates between data from external systems and the data nodes defined by the occasionally-connected data model stored on the server; wherein the conduit manager employs a set of conduits that define transforms between data nodes defined by the occasionally-connected data model and requests and responses for a specific external web service; wherein the occasionally-connected application server interacts with the specific external web service to produce and update data nodes for the client; wherein the data nodes have associated synchronization states, wherein the synchronization states are passed between the server and the mobile client as a background process to synchronize the data nodes on the server with the data nodes on the mobile client, such that update operations performed on the data nodes during periods where the mobile client is disconnected from the server are reflected on the server when the connection is reestablished by employing the synchronization states associated with the data nodes.