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

Transcript

1. CREATING MOBILE APPS IN A BACKEND-AS-A-SERVICE WORLD LOOK, MA: NO SERVER! CLAY SMITH, NEW RELIC - DEVFEST VIENNA 2015 @SMITHCLAY
2. LOOK MA, NO SERVER! ABOUT ME Web App Dev Mobile Dev burritos Dev Advocate @ New Relic
3. LOOK MA, NO SERVER! AGENDA THE 2015 APP MODERN BACKENDS INTRO TO BAAS EVENT-DRIVEN BAAS PERFORMANCE
4. THE 2015 APP
5. MULTIPLATFORM
6. INTERNATIONAL
7. COOLSENSORS
8. SUPERRESPONSIVE
9. CONNECTED CC flickr.com/photos/hernanpc/18954719651
10. YEAR EXABYTES MOBILE DATA* *Google "mobile data growth" for a real graph.
11. 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
12. PUSHNOTIFICATIONS
13. APP BACKENDS MAKING YOUR MOBILE DREAMS A REALITY
14. REMEMBER THESE? CC flickr.com/photos/dominichargreaves/2345869796
15. IAAS, AT YOUR SERVICE CC flickr.com/photos/doctorow/14574108306 IT'S ALL IN THE CLOUD
16. LOOK MA, NO SERVER NOT SHOWN IN PREVIOUS DIAGRAM ▸ Security ▸ Server Provisioning ▸ Deploying ▸ Monitoring and Alerting ▸ Scaling
17. PAAS, PLEASE DON'T WANT TO WORRY ABOUT INFRASTRUCTURE?
18. git push PaaS master MAGIC!
19. MOST OF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE VIRTUES OF A PROGRAMMER... LAZINESS, IMPATIENCE, AND HUBRIS Larry Wall, creator of Perl LOOK MA, NO SERVER!
20. WE ARE MOVING TO VERY HIGH-LEVEL ABSTRACTIONS FOR APP BACKENDS CC flickr.com/photos/veljovic/15738348069
21. VERY HIGH-LEVEL ABSTRACTIONS != EASIER
22. BACKEND AS A SERVICE A THING SINCE ~2011
23. YE OLDE BACKEND
24. TRADITIONAL VERY SIMPLIFIED WEB APP ARCHITECTURE
25. NEW STUFF BACKEND AS A SERVICE
26. "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
27. STORAGE
28. SINGLESIGNON
29. FANCYCONSOLES
30. MULTIPLATFORM
31. CLIENTLIBRARIES
32. PUSHNOTIFICATIONS
33. REALTIMESTUFF
34. SECURITY?
35. THE BAAS BIG 3*
36. PARSE (FACEBOOK) FOUNDED IN 2011, ACQUIRED IN 2013.
37. FIREBASE (GOOGLE) FOUNDED 2011, ACQUIRED 2014. REALTIME FOCUS.
38. CLOUDKIT (APPLE) "ICLOUD FOR DEVELOPERS" - DONE THE APPLE WAY
39. 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).
40. LOOK MA, NO SERVER! HOW BAAS PROVIDERS MATURE (TYPICALLY) DATABASE AUTHENTICATION EVERYTHING ELSE
41. 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)
42. PRACTICAL BAAS FOR A SIMPLE APP LET'S SEE SOME CODE! CC flickr.com/photos/hackny/6890140478
43. 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
44. 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
45. AUTH MORE THAN USER + PASS CC flickr.com/photos/111692634@N04/11406965045
46. 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.
47. 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
48. LOOK MA, NO SERVER! PARSE COOLNESS: CONVERTING AN ANONYMOUS USER TO REAL USER ParseAnonymousUtils.isLinked(ParseUser.getCurrentUser())
49. LOOK MA, NO SERVER! USERNAME/PASSWORD AUTH - ANDROID ParseUser user = new ParseUser(); user.setUsername("username"); user.setPassword("pass"); user.setEmail("email@example.com"); user.signUpInBackground(); // ref is a reference to your Firebase URL ref.createUser("email@example.com", "pass", new Firebase.ValueResultHandler<Map<String, Object>>() { // callbacks }); FIREBASE PARSE
50. DATA PERSIST ALL THE THINGS CC flickr.com/photos/rh2ox/9990024683
51. LOOK MA, NO SERVER! YESTERSPRINT: AN EXAMPLE SPRINT RETROSPECTIVE APP
52. 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<ParseObject> query = ParseQuery.getQuery("Retro");
 query.whereEqualTo("members", ParseUser.getCurrentUser());
 // Execute query in background thread
 query.findInBackground(new FindCallback<ParseObject>() { // ... } ); FETCHING CREATING
53. LOOK MA, NO SERVER! FIREBASE - CREATING AND FETCHING Firebase retroRef = ref.child("retros"); Map<String, String> newRetro = new HashMap<String, String>(); 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) { } });
54. 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.
55. 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!
56. 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
57. 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
58. 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)
59. EVENT-DRIVEN BAAS
60. WEBHOOKS ARE "USER-DEFINED HTTP CALLBACKS" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webhook CC https://www.flickr.com/photos/versageek
61. AN EVENT IS A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN THE STATE OF THE UNIVERSE. K. Mani Chandy, "Towards a Theory of Events" LOOK MA, NO SERVER!
62. LOOK MA, NO SERVER! WEBHOOKS: EVERYTHING BECOMES EVENT-DRIVEN
63. 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
64. 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.
65. 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.
66. 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!
67. PERFORMANCE HOW BAAS DOES IN REAL LIFE... CC flickr.com/photos/monthouphoto
68. LAZY BENCHMARKING
69. 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.
70. 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)
71. MILLISECONDS
72. MILLISECONDS
73. TL;DR: BE AWARE OF GEOGRAPHY
74. 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.
75. TO BAAS OR NOT TO BAAS?
76. QUESTIONS? CLAY SMITH, NEW RELIC @SMITHCLAY