Look ma, no server! Creating mobile apps on backend-as-a-service platforms

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CREATING MOBILE APPS IN A BACKEND-AS-A-SERVICE WORLD LOOK, MA: NO SERVER! CLAY SMITH, NEW RELIC - DEVFEST VIENNA 2015 @SMITHCLAY

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! ABOUT ME Web App Dev Mobile Dev burritos Dev Advocate @ New Relic

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! AGENDA THE 2015 APP MODERN BACKENDS INTRO TO BAAS EVENT-DRIVEN BAAS PERFORMANCE

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THE 2015 APP

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MULTIPLATFORM

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INTERNATIONAL

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COOLSENSORS

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SUPERRESPONSIVE

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CONNECTED CC flickr.com/photos/hernanpc/18954719651

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YEAR EXABYTES MOBILE DATA* *Google "mobile data growth" for a real graph.

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! COMMON APP NETWORK REQUESTS ▸ API Requests (3rd-party or internal) ▸ Analytics ▸ Static Content ▸ Images ▸ Video ▸ Audio CC0 stock.tookapic.com/photos/20932

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PUSHNOTIFICATIONS

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APP BACKENDS MAKING YOUR MOBILE DREAMS A REALITY

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REMEMBER THESE? CC flickr.com/photos/dominichargreaves/2345869796

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IAAS, AT YOUR SERVICE CC flickr.com/photos/doctorow/14574108306 IT'S ALL IN THE CLOUD

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER NOT SHOWN IN PREVIOUS DIAGRAM ▸ Security ▸ Server Provisioning ▸ Deploying ▸ Monitoring and Alerting ▸ Scaling

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PAAS, PLEASE DON'T WANT TO WORRY ABOUT INFRASTRUCTURE?

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git push PaaS master MAGIC!

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MOST OF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE VIRTUES OF A PROGRAMMER... LAZINESS, IMPATIENCE, AND HUBRIS Larry Wall, creator of Perl LOOK MA, NO SERVER!

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WE ARE MOVING TO VERY HIGH-LEVEL ABSTRACTIONS FOR APP BACKENDS CC flickr.com/photos/veljovic/15738348069

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VERY HIGH-LEVEL ABSTRACTIONS != EASIER

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BACKEND AS A SERVICE A THING SINCE ~2011

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YE OLDE BACKEND

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TRADITIONAL VERY SIMPLIFIED WEB APP ARCHITECTURE

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NEW STUFF BACKEND AS A SERVICE

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"A MODEL FOR PROVIDING... DEVELOPERS WITH A WAY TO LINK THEIR APP TO BACKEND CLOUD STORAGE AND APIS." Mobile BaaS: Wikipedia Definition CC flickr.com/photos/hrathmann/19646314070

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STORAGE

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SINGLESIGNON

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FANCYCONSOLES

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MULTIPLATFORM

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CLIENTLIBRARIES

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PUSHNOTIFICATIONS

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REALTIMESTUFF

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SECURITY?

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THE BAAS BIG 3*

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PARSE (FACEBOOK) FOUNDED IN 2011, ACQUIRED IN 2013.

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FIREBASE (GOOGLE) FOUNDED 2011, ACQUIRED 2014. REALTIME FOCUS.

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CLOUDKIT (APPLE) "ICLOUD FOR DEVELOPERS" - DONE THE APPLE WAY

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! ALSO WORTH MENTIONING ▸ Apache Usergrid (OSS) ▸ Amazon Mobile Hub (now in beta) ▸ Azure Mobile Web Services (Microsoft) ▸ Kivney, Synaco, Apigee, Appcelerator (and many more).

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! HOW BAAS PROVIDERS MATURE (TYPICALLY) DATABASE AUTHENTICATION EVERYTHING ELSE

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! IMPORTANT BAAS METRICS ($) ▸ Number of requests per minute ▸ Data transfer (network I/O) ▸ Storage cost (persistence) ▸ Database ▸ Assets (Images, Audio, Video, etc)

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PRACTICAL BAAS FOR A SIMPLE APP LET'S SEE SOME CODE! CC flickr.com/photos/hackny/6890140478

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED - ANDROID dependencies { compile 'com.parse.bolts:bolts-android:1.+' compile 'com.parse:parse-android:1.+' } dependencies { compile 'com.firebase:firebase-client-android:2.4.0+' } FIREBASE PARSE ﬁrebase.com/docs/android/quickstart.html parse.com/apps/quickstart

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! SOME INITIALIZATION REQUIRED - INITIALIZATION (ANDROID) Parse.initialize(this, "api-key", "client-key"); // Activity#onCreate Firebase.setAndroidContext(this); // Activity#onCreate Firebase myFirebaseRef = new Firebase("https://my-app.firebaseio.com/"); FIREBASE PARSE ﬁrebase.com/docs/android/quickstart.html parse.com/apps/quickstart

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AUTH MORE THAN USER + PASS CC flickr.com/photos/111692634@N04/11406965045

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! SINGLE-SIGN ON SUPPORT Type Parse Firebase CloudKit Facebook Y Y N Google N Y N Username/Pass Y Y N Anonymous Y Y Y* Twitter Y Y N Github N Y N iCloud N N Y OAuth Y Y N * Based on publicly available documentation as of 11/6/2015.

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! ANONYMOUS AUTH - ANDROID ParseUser.enableAutomaticUser(); ParseUser.getCurrentUser(); // Exists! // ref is a reference to your Firebase URL ref.authAnonymously(new Firebase.AuthResultHandler() { // ... } ); FIREBASE PARSE ﬁrebase.com/docs/android/quickstart.html parse.com/apps/quickstart

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! PARSE COOLNESS: CONVERTING AN ANONYMOUS USER TO REAL USER ParseAnonymousUtils.isLinked(ParseUser.getCurrentUser())

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! USERNAME/PASSWORD AUTH - ANDROID ParseUser user = new ParseUser(); user.setUsername("username"); user.setPassword("pass"); user.setEmail("[email protected]"); user.signUpInBackground(); // ref is a reference to your Firebase URL ref.createUser("[email protected]", "pass", new Firebase.ValueResultHandler>() { // callbacks }); FIREBASE PARSE

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DATA PERSIST ALL THE THINGS CC flickr.com/photos/rh2ox/9990024683

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! YESTERSPRINT: AN EXAMPLE SPRINT RETROSPECTIVE APP

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! PARSE - CREATING AND FETCHING ParseObject newRetro = new ParseObject("Retro");  newRetro.put("createdBy", ParseUser.getCurrentUser()); // Creates a retrospective to many users relationship.  newRetro.getRelation("members").add(ParseUser.getCurrentUser());  newRetro.saveInBackground(); ParseQuery query = ParseQuery.getQuery("Retro");  query.whereEqualTo("members", ParseUser.getCurrentUser());  // Execute query in background thread  query.findInBackground(new FindCallback() { // ... } ); FETCHING CREATING

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! FIREBASE - CREATING AND FETCHING Firebase retroRef = ref.child("retros"); Map newRetro = new HashMap(); newRetro.put("createdBy", "clay"); retroRef.push().setValue(newRetro); FETCHING CREATING ref.child("user/clay/retros").addValueEventListener(new ValueEventListener() { @Override public void onDataChange(DataSnapshot snap) { } @Override public void onCancelled(FirebaseError error) { } });

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! REALTIME EVENTS SIDEBAR - HOW DO THEY DO IT? ▸ CloudKit: Uses Apple Push Notiﬁcations ▸ Firebase: Uses websockets ▸ Parse: good old fashioned HTTP.

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ALL FIREBASE DATABASE DATA IS STORED AS JSON OBJECTS. THERE ARE NO TABLES OR RECORDS. firebase.com/docs/android/guide/understanding-data.html LOOK MA, NO SERVER!

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! OFFLINE READY Parse.enableLocalDatastore(this); // must be called before Parse.initialize()! retrospective.saveEventually(); // when the network is available, it will save. FIREBASE PARSE // Automagic... mostly. Firebase.getDefaultConfig().setPersistenceEnabled(true); // between app restarts

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! UI HELPERS TO MAKE IT SUPER EASY ▸ ParseQueryAdapter - Connects a list of parse data to an Android ListView (ParseUI-Android) ▸ FirebaseListAdapter - Same for Firebase (FirebaseUI- Android) CC flickr.com/photos/groovenite

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! NOT DISCUSSED (FURTHER READING SUGGESTED) ▸ Authorization - who gets what ▸ Geo data (both Parse and Firebase) ▸ Push Notiﬁcations (Parse only) ▸ Analytics (Parse only)

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EVENT-DRIVEN BAAS

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WEBHOOKS ARE "USER-DEFINED HTTP CALLBACKS" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webhook CC https://www.flickr.com/photos/versageek

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AN EVENT IS A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN THE STATE OF THE UNIVERSE. K. Mani Chandy, "Towards a Theory of Events" LOOK MA, NO SERVER!

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! WEBHOOKS: EVERYTHING BECOMES EVENT-DRIVEN

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! PARSE: WEBHOOKS AND CLOUD CODE ▸ webhooks: a URL gets hit when beforeSave and afterSave gets called on a ParseObject ▸ Cloud Code: custom endpoints, triggers. ▸ Static hosting and Heroku support, too. CC flickr.com/photos/infomastern/14719723237

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! FIREBASE EVENT-DRIVEN APPROACH USING THEIR NODE.JS CLIENT ▸ Node.js server listens for events using the firebase node library, then *does other stuff* ▸ More code, but still really useful. ▸ https://github.com/firebase/flashlight (Firebase Elastic Search) ▸ New: Google Cloud modules.

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! AMAZON WEB SERVICES: "CLOUD LOGIC" IN MOBILE HUB (IN BETA) ▸ Exposes AWS Lambda Functions easily to mobile apps. ▸ Lambda: event driven, integrates with other major AWS services. ▸ Write once, run on multiple platforms. ▸ Current (late 2015) languages: node.js, python, java.

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! PARSE - RUNNING A CLOUD CODE FUNCTION (JAVA/ANDROID) ParseCloud.callFunctionInBackground("myAwesomeFn", params, new FunctionCallback() { public void done(Object object, ParseException e) { // TODO: Handle response } } LOOK MA, NO BACKEND!

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PERFORMANCE HOW BAAS DOES IN REAL LIFE... CC flickr.com/photos/monthouphoto

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LAZY BENCHMARKING

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! TEST: SET {"FOO":"BAR"} IN PARSE OR FIREBASE'S DATABASE ▸ Track how long it takes to get a success response for the server. ▸ Run the operation in JavaScript, track with a simple timer. ▸ Run the code in Singapore, Sydney, Sao Paulo, Dublin, Frankfurt, Washington DC and San Francisco.

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER1 NEW RELIC SYNTHETICS SCRIPT (I.E. SELENIUM) WEB PAGE (USING BAAS JAVASCRIPT SDKS) CREATE OBJ PARSE API FIREBASE API PUSH INSIGHTS (NRDB = METRICS DATABASE) CREATE OBJ SYNTHETICS (RUNS A WEB PAGE IN DIFFERENT PLACES)

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MILLISECONDS

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MILLISECONDS

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TL;DR: BE AWARE OF GEOGRAPHY

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LOOK MA, NO SERVER! FREE PLAN COMPARISON (IT'S DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND) Type Parse Firebase* CloudKit* File Transfer 2 TB 100 GB 2 GB File Storage 20 GB 1 GB 10 GB Database Storage 20 GB 1 GB 100 MB Requests per sec 30 100 40 * Based on publicly available documentation as of 11/6/2015. CloudKit limits grow with active user count.