CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaandroidjakarta-eeamazon-web-servicesbackend
Himanshu Virmani
Himanshu Virmani

Reputation: 2460

Back end suggestions for android application

I am creating an image/graphics intensive application on android. Thus I have decided to keep images at server side and fecth them in batches when needed for each user. Apart from this I would like to manage some minor user data at backend for any future extension to the app or dynamic loading of some content.

For this I am looking out for the easiest but not a very rigid back-end solution. After some research I have boiled down to below mentioned options(In the order of priority):-

  1. Amazon SDK for android :- It looks like this provides a lot of pre-built components but I am not sure how flexible it is when doing some custom back-end coding/feature implementation.

  2. Parse :- Easy to understand and use but not flexible when it comes to custom feature development.

  3. Amazon EC2 Java Backend:- I will have to do all the server side coding from scratch here but this will provide complete independence in feature implementations. Though I would love if I can find some code samples relates to user management, backend db management and java restful web services.

Any suggestions or pointers that you guys have in the above choice would be great

Thanks in advance

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1075

Answers (3)

droidx
droidx

Reputation: 2172

I have been using Parse but I haven't explored the other 2. So, this may not be a comprehensive answer but I would try to give you some pointers based on my experience with Parse.

I have been into Android development for quite some time now but I do not have any significant expertise (I would say very minimal) on the backend. Also, you mentioned you wish to work on graphics/image intensive application. As far as the application I use Parse for is more of user data and minimal images, (requiring extensive relational database).

  1. Parse makes it really simple to create the backend structure. And the client SDK is also very powerful. Their API's are very straight-forward and doesn't require you to worry about writing complex queries, caching them and saving the data. Given my background as I mentioned above, I would say there is no learning curve involved into getting started with the dev. You can simply start building your app right away!

  2. Also, Parse uses AWS S3 on the backend with Mongo-DB. So, I believe computation on the server side should not be a problem. Server side logic can be implemented using ParseCloud (requires some javascript). But, if you plan to write some complex algorithms, I am not very sure how much can that be done.

  3. Documentation of Parse on Android is quite good to get through most of the dev. Extensive doc for iPhone dev.

  4. As far as cost structure goes, it allows 1 million free API requests per month and this is very much sufficient to get through quite a number of users. In your case, the storage should be of more concern. Parse allows 1GB free and some 20 cents above per GB.

Hope this helps!

Upvotes: 1

Eduardo Briguenti Vieira
Eduardo Briguenti Vieira

Reputation: 4579

I don't know what kind of app you are doing, but I'll propose one approach.

  1. Use https://imageshack.com/ for images.

  2. Create your user saving data application with a lightweight webservice (REST+JSON) and expose it at heroku (https://www.heroku.com/) with your prefered language/plataform. It could be java or ruby.

Using imageshack for images will save cloud space for you and the service is quite fast.

Upvotes: 1

quinnjn
quinnjn

Reputation: 623

I am looking out for the easiest but not a very rigid back-end solution

Have you considered AppEngine? Here's a tutorial about how to get app engine working for you fast

You can store up to 5 GB of blob storage for free, should be more than enough for experimenting. If you go over you can pay the $0.13/GB/mo extra for blob storage, which is more than reasonable.

Upvotes: 1

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