MBAAS - Mobile Backend as a Service

Recently when we started working on our new iOS project, the client server communication and its importance was being emphasized upon and was clearly the highlight of the discussion. Also some concerns such as the delay in meeting deadlines owing to a lot of time consumption and the required number of resources also had us thinking and discussing various ways to solve such issues.

We then thought of following some unconventional ways of problem solving and our problem ended with an amazing solution- MBAAS i.e. Mobile backend as a service. I would like to share some of the most important advantages of using MBAAS for mobile application development along with a sneak peek at some of the possible drawbacks as well.

In our app client server communication, push notifications and social networking were the key features. Traditional methods used to achieve these are usually very time-consuming and complicated for developers. Instead we chose MBAAS, which forms a bridge between the frontend of app to the backend of it.

MBAAS is a cloud computing developer tool, which mainly focuses on connecting web and mobile apps to cloud services. It’s a very powerful solution for connecting mobile apps to backend, which provides features such as data storage on cloud, push notification services, user authentication via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, messaging and chat functions or user management. As MBAAS managed backend data in our app, our efforts reduced to a great extent, which in turn saved time and money and in addition it facilitated data security as well.

MBAAS provides SDK and APIs for app development on different platforms, such as iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows mobile.

Following are some of the popular MBAAS providers,

Parse, Kinvey, Appcelerator cloud are cloud based MBAAS providers, OpenMobster, OpenKit are open source MBAAS providers.

For our App we found Parse as the best suited solution since the User management, Push notifications were essential features. User can choose the appropriate provider according to his requirements. In order to simplify this, I have highlighted some of the important features provided by Parse.

Parse:

Parse is one of the popular cloud based MBAAS provider. It enabled us to add a scalable and powerful backend very quickly, so our app was developed in less time without worrying about server management. It allowed us to focus on user interface and take care of server maintenance and complex infrastructure. It also provides native SDKs for iOS, Android, Windows 8, JavaScript, Windows Phone, OS X, .net, Xamarin.

Parse provides following features

1) User Management:

• It provides a very powerful user management feature, which performs much of the functionality required for user management
• It manages the user accounts and lets users access their information securely
• It handles the sign in, sign up functions with password security and error handling
• It also performs the username and email validations reducing developers work
• It also allows user authentication using Facebook, Twitter
• It provides role based access control so even small piece of data can also be accessed with access privileges
• As it stores the data in key value pair, accessing information on device becomes very easy and quick

2) Data storage:

• It helps you to store data on cloud securely and efficiently
• It stores basic data types, locations, photos and can fetch them very easily

3) Business Logic:

• User can run customized JavaScript code in backend, this feature lets the developer concentrate on business logic of their app
• Writing business logic on backend reduces developer’s overhead of writing code in multiple platforms

4) Push notifications:

• It provides a simplified process of push notification
• It sends notifications via web console, REST API or client SDKs
• Using parse pro and enterprise users can segment their customers and can send targeted push notifications very easily
• It also allows its users to schedule their notifications

5) Web servers:

• It provides a powerful server for easy data sharing between web and mobile app
• Users can store bunch data in the form of .json, .csv, .xls, .txt files
• Web to app connections are made with HTTPS and SSL so no need to worry about security

6) Analytics:

• It tracks app open rates, push opens, and API requests data
• It displays real time analytics of your app usage, push campaigns and custom analytics in the user-friendly Parse dashboard
• Also shows overlay graphs, filter by date and so many things

After having talked about some of the advantages of MBAAS and many interesting features, there are some drawbacks as well that one needs to weigh. As MBAAS technologies are tightly coupled to specific cloud platforms, the instances of migration to some other platform efforts will increase to a great extent. In addition, though some providers offer free plans, the pricing ramps up heavily, especially so if you exceed the free allocation.

Hence if one can simply manage a few disadvantages of MBAAS here and there, one can definitely accelerate mobile app development using MBAAS solution. The real challenge is to choose the provider as per the app requirement and get benefited.

References:

http://www.kpbird.com/2013/05/list-of-mobile-backend-as-service.html

http://weblogs.asp.net/shijuvarghese/archive/2013/11/07/cloud-mbaas-the-next-big-thing-in-enterprise-mobility.aspx

http://www.folio3.com/blog/mbaas-platforms/

http://blog.sukoonghar.in/2013/05/23/kinvey-vs-parse-comparison/

http://www.tipsyandtumbler.co.uk/blog/boydlee/choosing-an-mbaas-solution