An Introduction to Firebase: Part One
Firebase is a Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider based in San Francisco, California which allows users to build applications for the web and mobile interfaces without the need of server-side programming languages.
Starting out as a YC11 start-up, Firebase is now coined as “a next generation app-development platform on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP.)”
Firebase allows developers to stray away from server-side programming languages and focus more on crafing a better user experience. It can be viewed as a bundle of a server, the API and the datastore written in generic language in order to have developers modify it to their needs easily.
Firebase as a real-time database
Once connected, applications connect to Firebase via what is known as a “WebSocket,” instead of using generic HTTP. Firebase eradicates the need for applications to make HTTP calls in order to get (and sync) user data since everything is handled with the help of a single socket connection.
Hence, as soon as the user of the application creates and saves a change and/or modification from within the application, Firebase updates the respective data in not only one single client, but all connected cleints almost instantly.
Firebase as a real-time database can be further explained with the help of a video published at the Firebase YouTube channel.
Firebase as a cloud storage
Cloud storage for Firebase is a powerful and cost-effective storage that provides a rather simple way to store binary files. Firebase’s API lets the application send user-uploaded data to Firebase’s cloud.
For applications with credential-specific access to user-uploaded content, Firebase’s cloud authorizes viewing of user-uploaded content on only those variations with a successful Firebase authentication.
As you’ll notice in the video embedded below, security is Firebase’s primary concern. Hence, all transfers are performed over a secure connection that is particularly resumed. In addition, all transfers made via Firebase’s API have the ability to be automatically “resumed” after being “paused” due to network (or various other possible) errors.
What’s even more interesting is the fact that Firebase’s storage is backed by Google Cloud Storage- and it scales to literal petabytes!
That said (and published,) stay tuned for issue two!
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Originally published at thecyberfibre.com on September 2, 2017.
