BaaS

Backend as a service

or

Not reinventing the wheel

Mark Woodbridge, IC SaaS, September 2013

The Challenge

Development of non-trivial apps is hard:

Design, Security, Scaling, Testing

Mobile has its own difficulties:

Fragmentation, Usability, Debugging, Connectivity

And non-technical:

Monetisation, Marketing, Analytics, Support

Can these be abstracted?

Development of non-trivial apps is hard:

Design, Security, Scaling, Testing

Mobile has its own difficulties:

Fragmentation, Usability, Debugging, Connectivity

And non-technical:

Monetisation, Marketing, Analytics, Support

But why?

You want to focus on design, innovation and user experience

...and you'll need an API anyway

So why not let someone else do the

design
documention
implementation
maintenance
scaling
and security

so that you don't have to?

Server-side

Colocation
DIY sys admin
VPS/IaaS
DIY devops e.g. AWS, DigitalOcean
PaaS
DIY back-end e.g. Heroku, App Engine
BaaS
DIY front-end

Client-side

Native platform
iOS, Android, Windows, BlackBerry
Cross-platform native
Xamarin, Titanium, Flex
Cross-platform hybrid
Trigger, PhoneGap
Mobile web
jQM, Sencha, Bootstrap/Foundation

All BaaS compatible

BaaS: The big players

Cocoafish/Appcelerator (2010)

Most mature

Kinvey (2010)

Good value

Stackmob (2010)

Most flexible

Parse/Facebook (2011)

Broadest platform support

BaaS: The alternatives

Open source

Helios, BaasBox (Ruby)

OpenMobster (Java)

Proprietary

Apple iCloud

Google Cloud Platform/Play Services

Amazon Mobile SDK + AWS

Niche

Urban Airship (notifications)

Firebase (datastore)

Flurry (analytics)

Features

Core

Datastore

Notifications

Authentication

Custom code

Extras

Analytics

Billing/Mobile Wallets

Advertising

Streaming

Versioning

Location services

Advantages

Autoscaling

Security

Code push

Shared (de-duplicated) logic

Direct API access

Structure, UI separation

Future-proofing

Consistency

Dilemma of choice

No need to learn Ruby/Python/Java

Disadvantages

Data protection, jurisdiction

Data modelling/querying

OS integration (core data etc)

Lock-in

Critical infrastructure

Platform coverage

Offline support

Instrumentation

Extensibility

Cost

UI integration

Parse

// Initialisation and analyticsParse.initialize(this, applicationID, clientKey);
ParseAnalytics.trackAppOpened(getIntent());

// Data storeParseObject gameScore = new ParseObject("GameScore");
gameScore.put("score", 1337);
gameScore.put("playerName", "Sean Plott");
gameScore.saveInBackground();

// File storenew ParseFile("resume.txt", "Hello World!".getBytes()).saveInBackground();;

// Authentication
ParseTwitterUtils.logIn(this, new LogInCallback() {
  public void done(ParseUser user, ParseException err) {
    Log.d("MyApp", "User logged in through Twitter!");
  }
});

// NotificationsParsePush push = new ParsePush();
push.setChannel("Giants");
push.setMessage("The Giants just scored! It's now 2-2 against the Mets.");
push.sendInBackground();// File store