We were surprised to read the announcement from Parse last night that they are shutting down their service. When we started AnyPresence with a focus on helping enterprises accelerate modern app development, we looked at various aspects of what Parse and similar vendors were doing for independent app developers. The concepts behind a backend server for mobile apps were sound, and we felt they could be applied to enterprise app uses cases as long as the service provided additional capabilities such as on-premise deployment, custom classes, integration services, among others. Parse was one of the more widely adopted services at the time. I had the pleasure of meeting Parse CEO, Ilya Sukhar, and speaking with him on a panel at Apps World 2013. We are sad to see the Parse team exit this space, and wish them the best of luck.
Another popular backend service called Stackmob was shut down in 2014 after being acquired by PayPal, and their customers faced the same challenge that all Parse customers face now: they have to figure out how to migrate their entire backend to a new service, or shut down their apps. We wrote about this back then, and I get a sense of deja vu, but wonder if people have learned their lesson yet. There are still many MBaaS providers that are proprietary services that lock you into their platform.
Parse is to be commended for doing a decent job of creating a migration guide. However, this option still leaves many features unsupported, such as user session management, admin dashboard, and push notifications, to name a few. If you used any of these features, and the chances are highly likely you did, your app simply won’t work.
At AnyPresence, one of the tenets we felt was important to an enterprise backend service (also referred to as MBaaS or BaaS), is that customers should have full control over the source code of their applications. If they invest in learning and using a backend service, they should also have the freedom of source code portability, and not have to worry about what happens to their app if the vendor is acquired or decides to shut down the service (yes, even Google and Microsoft shut services down). Some vendors claim lock-in is not important or is outweighed by other benefits. They are being disingenuous – just ask any former Stackmob or Parse customer who truly built cross-platform apps with real world usage and relied on the service to be available.
It is imperative if you are considering using a backend (MBaaS/BaaS) vendor, that you ask the following three questions:
- Do I have full access to the MBaaS source code?
Ask your vendor if all their source code is available to you. Not just the client-side SDKs, but also the backend server, and the backend server administrative console. - Can I continue to run my app if your service shuts down?
Ask your vendor if you have the ability to download the run-time components of your app backend, and deploy and administer it anywhere you like without going to their web site. You should be able to stop subscribing to the vendor, and still run your app as expected. - Do I own the intellectual property (IP) of my app components?
This one requires both technical and contractual support. Ideally, your vendor answers yes to questions #1 and #2 above, and also gives you IP ownership of the runtime components of your app backend (with the exception of any open source components, of course). This should be clearly covered in the Terms or Subscription Agreement.
Here is a simple test to check for lock-in: ask your vendor to show you how to download the source code for your app backend, and run the server in your own infrastructure, including the backend administrative console. If they can’t show you how this is done, or better yet – refer you to a customer that has done it, you are probably locked into your vendor.
We hope this helps future enterprises who are looking for the benefits of a backend service, without the risk of shut down or a messy migration that comes from lock-in. You can evaluate how AnyPresence gives you the best of both worlds, by signing up for a free trial at www.anypresence.com.