It feels really amazing to begin writing this blog post. We got caught in an unusually long release cycle, spent months iterating over the new features, improvements and bug fixes, but in the end it was well worth it. We did it! Backendless 2.0 is here and the product is as cool and powerful as ever. With this release we made several very firm steps towards establishing the Backendless Platform – a unified system for designing, developing, running and managing backend services.
The release brings four major new features and about a dozen at а smaller scale. All of the new features are distinct differentiators of our product making it the strongest mobile backend as a service offering on the market. So without any further ado, let me introduce the new additions to our feature line up:
Geofencing
This extends the logical trajectory of our geolocation service and makes it infinitely smarter (and way more valuable). The system consists of a design-time editor where you can draw your own geofences of regular (square and circle) and irregular shapes. Once drawn, you can assign actions which Backendless will execute when geopoints cross boundaries of geofences by entering them, stay within or leave. The system provides two ways of location monitoring client-side and server-side- you can choose which one is right for your app.
See the videos describing the feature in greater detail:
Logging
Backendless now supports centralized, server-side logging. Apps can use it for debugging, diagnostics or analytics purposes. We added logging API to all our SDKs. Backendless console was updated with a management interface where you can control log filters and configure log policies.
Hosting Scripts (node.js integration)
We have had custom server-side business logic for quite some time. However, if you ever wanted to add some business logic using JavaScript/node.js, there was no way to do so. This is not a problem anymore, Backendless now supports node.js server-side scripting. The scripts can be created inside of or uploaded using the Backendless console. A script can provide server-side logic for an app or dynamic content for a web application.
Backendless API Engine
This is a new product in our platform and it is just as big as the rest of Backendless we’ve had before. API Engine is a combination of service analyzer, API/SDK generator, hosting environment, invocation and security managers. It is rich and complex, but extremely easy to use. With API Engine you can effortlessly turn any server-side code into a service with dynamically generated REST API and native client-side libraries for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, JavaScript and ActionScript. There is a fantastic test drive that lets you call service operations right from the Backendless console. You can control role-based security for your service methods. You can get the service Swagger document generated by API Engine and use it with other Swagger compatible tools.
There is a lot more to it, but for now check out the introductory videos reviewing and demoing the product:
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