Tech innovations have created a stir across numerous professional sectors. From the business landscape to the app development arena, latest tech advancements have caused massive transformations. Amongst a range of other technologies, BaaS or Backend-as-a-service deserves a special mention.
As one of the ever-growing and reliable cloud service platforms, BaaS offers unique management of centralized database, thus allowing users share content via Cloud and stay competitive with incredible RoI on their BaaS investment.
With the present times heralding the emergence of highly scalable BaaS frameworks such as Parse, ample avenues and opportunities have opened up for the developers’ community.
Introducing Parse
Parse, a popular, spectacular, and innovative BaaS framework happens to be the greatest innovation in the development arena. The revolution arrived with a bang in 2011, and by the consecutive year, it was ruling the hearts of minds of proficient developers.
According to statistics, Parse as an MBaaS or Mobile Backend as a Service provider, recorded an impressive 10,000 applications by the end of 2012. It was in 2013 that Facebook decided to acquire Parse, and bump up the user base to nearly 500,000 applications.
Parse and its contemporaries
Although this unique framework created a lot of buzz since its inception, it can’t be regarded as the only BaaS solutions. Right from its discovery and emergence, Parse had quite a few contemporaries or better to say, competitors. From tech giants such as Microsoft and Amazon to Any Presence and Kinvey, all of them had launched their exclusive BaaS frameworks.
However, Parse proved to be the star amongst all these heavyweights. It strong feature list was a key reason behind Parse’s unmatched popularity.
Unraveling the features
With well-documented and easy-to-use SDKs along with an intuitive backend platform, Parse was simply best of the lot. From accelerating MVP production to empowering small and large applications, Parse could do it all. Some of the other exclusive features of this unique framework include:
- Highly affordable and competitive pricing
- Push services
- User authentication
- Cloud computing
- Active configuration
- Easy setup
With such ‘one-of-its-kind’ features, Parse was inevitably the first choice for numerous companies and enterprises.
The shutdown
In spite of its unparalleled popularity, Parse seemed to have a short life. Just when the number of Parse users was increasing at a super-fast pace, Facebook decided to put an end to its services on 28th of January, 2016.
The announcement meant that users will now have to think about Parse Migration and shift their applications well before 27th January 2016. Quite naturally, this has led to the subscribers to think and explore of ideal options that can prove to be a viable substitute for Parse for the deployment of their applications.
Recommendations by the Framework
It was during this time that Parse came up with a solution. It promised to keep its services alive for a short span, which was again not of much use. The most crucial dates are:
- 28th April 2016: Mongo DB as the first self-hosted data migration framework
- 28th July 2016: By this date, users had to execute Parse server setup along with releasing new applications that introduce it.
With such proposals or rather aggressive recommendations from the platform, it is worth stepping up the accelerator in finding appropriate Parse Hosting alternative. Here is our take on some handy tips that can help you make the right choice in this regard:
Assessing the alternatives
There’s no denying the fact that such situations would tend to be a bit tedious. However, it’s not the end of the world, and there are effective alternatives too. Let’s check out some of them:
1. Host and Migrate your server
With Parse’s open-source server, developers will have the opportunity to migrate and manage their applications on this new platform. The ‘migration guide’ is also available which makes the process even easier than ever. However, it will be imperative to have your entire backend built on Parse.
2. Making the big switch
If server hosting and maintenance is not your cup of tea, you can also switch over to a new SaaS. With the database migration tool offered by Parse, data migration won’t prove to be a problem. All you need to do is perform some of the important tasks, thus helping in data migration.
3. Building your own solution
The features and performance of your backend solution will inevitably depend on the nature of your applications. If your application is built-to-scale and supports future integrations; building your own and exclusive backend will turn out to be the best decision. That will also grant you complete control over your applications.
Final word
The situation might be a bit disturbing, but it’s not impossible to arrive at a solution. With these tips in mind, it won’t be quite tough to achieve successful Parse migration. If you are unclear about a viable Parse migration strategy, then let us at Mobisoft Infotech know. Our team of experts can help you with this requirement in the most cost-effective manner.
