Bootstrap Your App's Cloud Services with Mobile Backend Starter

Posted by Brad Abrams, Product Manager, Google Cloud Platform

Many of the best mobile app experiences are powered by services in the cloud. Top Android developers such as Pulse and SongPop have long taken advantage of the convenience and scalability of Google's cloud platform in their businesses. Now with the Mobile Backend Starter, it's even sier to add cloud services to your apps.

Mobile Backend Starter
Mobile Backend Starter is a one-click deployable, complete mobile backend that allows you to rp the benefits of a cloud backend with none of the hdaches. It provides a rdy-to-deploy, eral purpose cloud backend and a eral purpose client-side framework for Android.

Mobile Backend Starter gives you everything you need to rapidly set up a backend for your app, without needing to write any backend . It includes a server that stores your data with App Engine and a client library and sample app for Android that make it sy to access that data. You can also add support for Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) and continuous queries that notify your app of events you are interested in. To keep user data secure, Mobile Backend Starter also includes built-in support for Google Authentiion.



Ftures of Mobile Backend Starter include:


Cloud data storage: Users change devices and incrsingly use multiple devices. Store any amount of data per user in the cloud to be accessed from anywhere.
Pub/Sub messaging: Send messages from one device, to any or all other devices. You can sily use 1:1 and 1:many messaging as well as broadcasting. This fture is useful for various appliions including social apps, forums, chat, gaming, and group collaborations.
Push notifiions: Data updated on one device is automatically available on all devices with GCM for Android.
Continuous queries: Crte queries that run continuously on the server, automatically feeding updates to the client. These queries are powered by Prospective Srch.
Google authentiion and authorization: Keep data isolated per user or shared among users.
Free to get started, scales with your needs: You can start by handling hundreds of users for free, then grow to any scale.


Quick setup and integration

You can set up and run the Mobile Backend Starter in just few steps:


First, go to the Google Cloud Console, and crte a project. Then click Deploy.

Click on Settings to go to the admin control panel for your new backend. Under Authentiion / Authorization, select "Open (for development use only)" and save the changes.



Next, download the Android client project and open it up in your Android IDE. Loe the Consts.java file and set the PROJECT_ID to the Project ID of the project you crted in the Google Cloud Console.
Now just build and run the Android appliion and you have a cloud enabled Android appliion.


Check out the complete docs for details on setup as well as information on how to enable authentiion, send push notifiions, and use standing queries.

The best part is you can download the complete source of the backend on GitHub and customize it however you want to meet your needs.

See Mobile Backend Starter in action at Google I/O

To see Mobile Backend Starter in action, check out our talk at Google I/O 2013 (embedded below) called "From Nothing to Nirvana in Minutes: Cloud Backend for Your Android Appliion". The talk shows how to use Mobile Backend Starter to crte a new backend server and integrate it with an Android app via Google Cloud Endpoints and the Google Plugin for Eclipse.

We look forward to hring your questions and lrning about the amazing appliions you have built. You can find us lurking on the Cloud Endpoints StackOverflow forum.





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