We are happy to announce availability of Backendless installers for the Standalone Edition build. Standalone Backendless is an installation of the product which runs on your own servers, either on-premises or in the cloud. The product comes with a free license for development and production purposes so long that the entire installation runs on the same computer or virtual machine. The product can be easily configured to scale out and include additional instances. In that case a commercial license is required. You can find the download link on the Backendless Downloads page on our site.
Enjoy!
We have just updated the website with fresh set of docs for Backendless API Engine. To remind you, API Engine is a product within Backendless Platform responsible for turning arbitrary Java (and very soon PHP) code into API services. The product automatically generates REST APIs and native SDKs. The documentation is available at:
https://backendless.com/documentation/api-engine
You can also get to it through the general documentation home at (make sure to select the Backendless API Engine tab):
https://backendless.com/documentation
Enjoy!
We are so excited to report that Backendless has been updated with the new version 3.0.0. This is the most important release we have ever done. The importance of it is on so many levels that it will affect everyone! First of all, we made Backendless more affordable than ever. There are three variations of Backendless:
- Backendless Cloud. This is our main, centralized installation of the service. There used to be three pricing plans, and with the 3.0 release, all the pricing plans we used to have are gone – there is only one “pricing plan” and it is FREE. You do not need to upgrade or choose a more costly plan ever. The backend includes all the Backendless features and is available so you can build very powerful and innovative apps. Of course the free level has some limitations which you can either remove or increase by purchasing individual Function Packs from our brand new Backendless Marketplace. Yes, we now have our own server-side app store and it is absolutely awesome (more about it later).
- Backendless Standalone. This is the version of Backendless which you can run on your own servers, either in the cloud or your own data center. Starting with 3.0, we offer this version of our product to you at no cost, without any functional limitations! That’s right, you can run your own private installation of Backendless for FREE. You might be asking, what’s the catch? The product license is free of charge so long that all of components of the Backendless product run on the same server or virtual machine. Whenever you need to start introducing scalability, fault tolerance, failover, etc, or in other words, whenever you introduce a second machine or a VM in your Backendless setup, a commercial license is required.
- Managed Backendless. This is a specialized installation of Backendless which we provide just for your applications. The backend runs in a complete isolation from all other apps, the entire installation is there to support your apps. This is the most secure and reliable installation you can get. There are no functional limitations on the functionality. Managed Backendless is monitored 24 x 7 and it is automatically scaled to provide a consistent response time and is backed by the commercial SLAs.
The release is also packed with some amazing features. Below is a list of the most notable ones:
- Backendless Marketplace. This is our own server-side app store. It is the key component of the Backendless Platform. The Marketplace is where you can find many products and services which will enhance your backend. We plan to rapidly evolve it and soon will allow anyone to contribute to it, but for now, it includes Function Packs – a special type of “product” that lets you remove or change limits of Backendless Cloud and Database Connectors (see below).
- Database Connectors. Backendless Marketplace includes 4 database connectors for the Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server and PostgreSQL databases. When you install a connector into your app, the Backendless Data Service API will communicate with the data from your own database. The connectors are available at no cost until the end of 2015.
- Backendless SDK for PHP. if you are a PHP developer, you can take advantage of Backendless with an SDK built specifically with you in mind. The SDK provides beautiful, clean, object-oriented API for all Backendless functionality. The SDK is open source and we welcome your contributions.
- Custom business logic in PHP. To support our vision of a polyglot system even further, we added support for custom server-side code in PHP. Previously it was only Java and JavaScript and we welcome PHP to the family of server-side languages we support. Backendless console can now generate service handler and timer code for PHP and we also created a special PHP CodeRunner which is a container for custom server-side business logic.
- Logging improvements. Backendless logging has been updated with integrations supporting Loggly and ElasticSearch. Using these integrations, Backendless submits log messages from your app to the corresponding service. Once the logs are available in Loggly or ElasticSearch, you can analyze them using the tools available in these services. Additionally, we added support for custom log message formats, which you can configure right from Backendless Console.
- Data constraints. This is a feature many users have asked for and now you can mark individual data columns as indexed, not null (required) and unique. This is a very powerful feature that can significantly improve the performance of your application.
- Google+ login. We have expanded support for social logins which already included Facebook and Twitter. Now you can configure your apps to allow users of Google+ can use their credentials to login to your app. Also, we modified Backendless console to allow app developers to login with the Google+ credentials.
We plan to publish detailed review of each feature in the near future. There is also going to be a series of webinars dedicated to the 3.0 release.
Enjoy!
It feels great to be recognized as a leader. Backendless is featured to be one of the top solutions for the global mobile application development in the DZone’s latest research guide, the Guide to Mobile Development – 2015 Edition. This guide features key findings from a survey of 500 + authoritative IT professionals which have led the precise exploration of the mobile market offers to emphasize the best of them. This study results in helpful and valuable articles from the industry experts, useful infographic that depicts common pain points for mobile developers and a solution directory of the leaders in mobile web frameworks and MADPs.
We resume our webinar series with the plan to conduct two webinars a month. The first one is dedicated to the Backendless 2.0 release where you get an overview of the Platform and the new features of the release. Our webinars are interactive and you can ask us any questions.
Join the upcoming free webinar “New Backendless 2.0 Release – Overview and Highlights” and get a detailed look at the new powerful development functionality: geofencing, server-side logging API, node.JS support and API Engine – a powerful API management solution.
The webinar will be useful for mobile app developers of all ranks – from a beginner to a experienced professional – as there will be plenty of tips & tricks to enhance your productivity in mobile application development.
When: Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Time: 12:00pm (CDT) *to convert the start time for the necessary timezone, use World Time Converter
Duration: 1 hour (with Q&A)
Speaker: Mark Piller – CEO/ Founder of Backendless
NOTE: We are using gotowebinar system to conduct an interactive webinar. This service has a strong desktop / Android mobile service for registration Please use your any desktop or Android mobile devices to register for our event.
If you have any questions feel free to leave your comments or email below this post or contact elena@backendless.com with any issues you need to be clarified.
Register now
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:
The Summer of 2015 is going to be hot! There are many reasons for it, but the most important, as we’re concerned, is the new Backendless 2.0 release! Since this is just a heads-up, we will not go into too many details. Let me just tell you that is packed with goodness! It has been a long release cycle, and you will see why very soon. We’re still a few steps away from the formal launch. There will be an official announcement and if you’d like to be the first to know – subscribe to the Backendless blog or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
I am sure you’d like to know what’s in 2.0 and let this be a little teaser..
Numero uno:
The Amazing Backendless Geofencing
It is very deep, well-thought out, rounded up, it could be a product on its own. The feature is so cool and powerful, you cannot get enough of it. Practically with zero lines of code you can build intelligent location tracking systems, react to coordinates changes, create marketing campaigns, etc, etc.
Logging API
Cross-platform, natively implemented in all SDKs, REST-compatible Backendless Logging API will make it trivially simple debug and diagnose app problems and analyze user behavior. Mega powerful and very easy to use.
Hosted Scripting
Backendless already supports custom server-side code (and mind you it does it better than anyone else). With 2.0, we’re raising the bar a few notches. Not only you can extend the behavior of our services, but you can also add your own JavaScript (node.js) scripts to the file storage. Yes, we’re adding support for dynamic content and custom business logic in the File Service.
Secret Announcement
Let us have that “one more thing moment”.. Of course there is something else, but we cannot talk about it yet. So stay tuned, you will love it!
GMO application cloud (GMO mBaaS) powered by Backendless – a mobile Backend-as-a-Service provided by Backendless Corp. and customized for the Japanese application development market is fully available as of today.
The service is a result of a successful partnership between Backendless Corp. and GMO Internet Group – one of the most comprehensive providers of industry-leading Internet Services in Japan. This partnership started last year just after completion of the Group’s precise exploration of mBaaS market offerings. Backendless surpassed the competitors’ proposals by the criteria of reliability, feature set, simplicity and flexibility as well as by various aspect of data security issues. The partnership gave birth to a new service by GMO Internet which has been already available in public free Beta version from January 2015 in Japan.
The official release of GMO mBaaS provides a broad set of the Mobile Application Development Platform features powered by the Backendless Platform. In conjunction with other features and services of GMO, the provider emphasizes multi-platform SDKs, a complete package of the backend functionality, powerful push notification capabilities and media streaming, custom logic functionality for customization of the mBaaS features.
Up until now the only way to experience and build apps with Backendless was our online service. Anyone can register with it for free, download client-side SDKs and build the best of the breed mobile apps. Things are going to change as we expand the reach of our platform so it can run right on your own machine, in your data center or a private cloud. So starting today Backendless is everywhere and Backendless is one. The standalone version of the Backendless Platform is also known as Backendless Enterprise comes in a variety of installers, virtual machines and cloud images available for free download today.
The Backendless Enterprise packaging and the free-to-download format allow on-premise or private cloud installation. Application developers and organizations can take full advantage of the Backendless Platform power with the total control of the application infrastructure, data, workflows and IT procedures. And all these benefits are obtained by Backendless Enterprise users without any dependency on the public cloud!
The Backendless Enterprise feature-set is identical to the Online version of Backendless. Your applications can rely on the powerful data persistence and app user management APIs, leverage file storage, deliver push notifications, exchange publish/subscribe messages and deploy custom business logic.
To get started with the product see the Backendless Enterprise Quick Start Guide.
For licensing inquiries, contact Backendless Sales.
Enjoy!
In my previous post I described how data tables in Backendless map to the client-side classes whose instances contain persisted data objects. However, there are scenarios when the default mapping is undesirable. In that case, Backendless client libraries provide an API to override the mapping. For example, consider the following data table (Restaurant):
