Why Should Your Business Choose Cloud Backend-as-a-Service for App Development

Behind every software application is a series of comprehensive backend services intended to support the frontend that you use and see each day. The amount of work that is involved in creating the backend technology is never a simple task.

Cloud Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) emerges as a transformative solution, presenting organizations with cloud-based services specifically designed for backend processing. Businesses can choose cloud services that simplify mobile app backend using BaaS instead of investing in onsite servers.

As a result, firms are freed from the limitations of conventional onsite server installations to concentrate on providing seamless and innovative frontend experiences. This also lessens the load of infrastructure administration and improves scalability and flexibility.

The global backend-as-a-service market size is projected to reach $27,016.6 million in 2033 against $3,011.4 million in 2023, expanding at a CAGR of 24.5%.

Key drivers favoring the growth of the global backend-as-a-service market include the rising demand for streamlined app development, as BaaS simplifies backend complexities, reducing development time and costs. The flexibility and scalability that BaaS provides match the changing requirements of companies looking for effective solutions. The increased adoption of cloud-based services and the implementation of other cutting-edge technologies further contribute to the global BaaS market’s growth trajectory.

This blog deals with the in-depth details of cloud BaaS, why it is needed in a business, its pros and cons, real-life examples, and more. Let’s start walking into the world of BaaS.

What is BaaS?

Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) is a third-party service that simplifies the development of websites and applications by eliminating backend issues. It frees developers from laborious tasks so they may focus on developing front-end features.

By giving developers access to a bundled infrastructure with SDKs (Software Development Kit) and APIs (Application Programming Interface), BaaS alleviates the burden of setting up authentication, controlling user permissions, and facilitating overall development. This guarantees scalability in developing powerful and intuitive applications without the burden of complex backend technicalities while also speeding up the development process.

Backend-as-a-Service Vs. Serverless Computing

BaaS streamlines backend development with pre-built services and is perfect for common applications. On the other hand, serverless computing is best suited for event-driven scenarios because it provides greater control over functions. Consider the detailed table below for a comprehensive overview.

How Does Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) Work?

Having a Backend-as-a-Service solution is one of the best ways to ensure convenience for businesses on a daily basis. The best BaaS tools are ideal for overseeing and managing a cloud infrastructure and accelerating the backend development.

The BaaS products work in three layers:

Foundation: Here, the mobile app backend server appears, where few run the programs, and others back up the information.

Applications: The BaaS products here handle requests (like login).

Connection: At this layer, the application servers can access the internet.

Bonus Read- A Quick Guide to Mobile App Backend Development 

Popular BaaS Development Platforms

Backend as a Service (BaaS) platforms have emerged as a cornerstone for businesses looking to streamline their workflow and enhance their app development processes. Some of the top BaaS Development platforms include:

AWS Amplify by Amazon: Amazon’s Amplify simplifies the process of creating scalable apps by offering features like storage, hosting, authentication, and APIs. It seamlessly integrates with other Amazon Web Services for a comprehensive cloud solution.

Firebase by Google: Firebase is a popular choice for developers building web and mobile applications as it provides an extensive range of cloud functionalities, hosting, real-time databases, authentication, and cloud services.

Kinvey by Progress: With features like push notifications, user authentication, and data connectors, Kinvey provides BaaS solutions for building and managing apps. It offers a safe and scalable backend for various app development scenarios.

Microsoft Azure Mobile Applications: Azure Mobile Apps, a part of Microsoft Azure cloud platform, offers a range of BaaS services for creating cross-platform mobile applications. It has features including push notifications, authentication, and offline data syncing.

Why Does Your Business Need Cloud Backend-as-a-Service?

The main business advantage of Cloud Backend-as-a-Service is related to productivity gains while outsourcing the cloud management responsibilities. Every small, medium, and large business will benefit substantially from using a backend platform. Let’s check out the plus points of using a Backend-as-a-Service provider:

Better Productivity

One of the prime benefits of mobile backend, or BaaS is that it supports companies to focus on the core business operations. The companies, while outsourcing their backend development process, can focus on the major competencies of their business and can handle more important things that need to be done on a priority basis.

This means better productivity, where the team can develop an app without wasting time and funds. Therefore, when it comes to the cloud backend, you can significantly reduce the timing of the software development cycles. You just need to utilize a specific BaaS provider, and it will divert your attention from the coding part and allow you to focus on other business processes. In this way, you can concentrate on your design and frontend development, thus making your app more crowd-pleasing.

The development team of Appinventiv created an end-to-end secured application with a robust backend architecture for Adidas users. Our experts also implemented a robust cache management system for enhanced productivity to eliminate redundancy and ensure faster application performance.

The brand gained a huge user base of over 500K and nearly 2 million downloads with the app.

Cost Reduction

With Cloud Backend-as-a-Service, you can curb unnecessary expenses. This is one of the most crucial benefits of utilizing a BaaS platform. If you outsource backend development, then you can maintain and roll out your apps with the existing talents. You don’t need to hire full-stack developers or expand your team to troubleshoot your application as you leverage the BaaS vendors’ expertise.

Do you know what else makes BaaS a cost-efficient solution?

It brings cloud technology benefits to the table for you.

In other words, you can simply avoid spending a fortune on the backend hardware and other physical servers with BaaS.

Enhanced Security

Organizations are constantly bugged by whether their data will remain secured while utilizing cloud BaaS. The best mobile Backend-as-a-Service helps in exporting data through the Management Console, thus providing the option of choosing the preferred vendor portability. Additionally, the mobile Backend-as-a-Service offers protection to the bulk data, thus eliminating the unseen risk of cloud computing in a business. A so-called Access Control List keeps the data from being hacked by malefactors.

Users can now enjoy end-to-end security with the help of Backend-as-a-Service while utilizing their applications. The mobile app backend services work with well-established security practices and offer a more robust environment than a self-coded backend. Besides that, the Backend-as-a-Service providers offer ready-to-use GDPR protocols. By leveraging BaaS, companies outsource their data processing requirements to any third party while saving their additional mobile app backend server setup time.

Scalability

A cloud-based mBaaS (Mobile-Backend-as-a-Service) solution offers you scalable options. This means that you can easily adapt your app to any kind of platform that you feel is suitable for your business. Organizations often require scaling up their resources, and the Cloud Backend-as-a-Service makes the process very straightforward and smoother. It also improves performance as it works on a well-designed, robust infrastructure.

Some of the best features that lead to better performance include multi-region deployments, implementation of ready-to-use CDNs, and new-generation virtual machines.

Stronger Focus on Front-End Development

Since Backend-as-a-Service comes with the key backend features, you will have more resources and time to focus and look after the front-end development. These tools can help you accommodate the increased usage rates without any complex backend work.

By focusing on the front-end development, you also focus on the user experience. A great user experience is essential, as it increases engagement and builds trust in a brand. Trading off the user interface for creating repetitive backend tasks is not exactly a smart choice.

BaaS will free the development resources that are being utilized on the backend, thus allowing the company to invest more time and energy on the front-end side. For instance, Appinventiv experts have built an AI-based analytic banking platform on the cloud premise for a leading global bank to enhance its customer retention. This led to a 92% increase in ATM service levels, a 35% reduction in manual processes, and a 20% spike in customer retention rate.

Competitive Edge to the Business

The best mobile Backend-as-a-Service solution can deploy MVPs or Minimum Viable Products faster. As a result, your company will get quick feedback from the end-user in a shorter period than the traditional backend coding.

This will allow your business to remain on a competitive edge, as you will know beforehand how your users are interacting with your product. Mobile backend services allow a faster launch of MVP.

Your team can make sound decisions and iterate on things that connect with your audience if you promptly measure user interactions with your product. The flexibility provided by mobile backend services encourages proactive product improvement and speeds up the development process. By taking this proactive approach, you can ensure your business is flexible, responsive, and positioned to meet changing customer demands.

Lean Management

Businesses can perform more efficiently with the cloud. By utilizing BaaS, you can migrate your existing workforce to focus mainly on monitoring and improvising the infrastructure.

Therefore, by outsourcing BaaS, you are not just enhancing your team’s productivity level but also ensuring lean management. Read how Appinventiv aligns lean principles in the software development process.

Real-Life Examples of Enterprises Utilizing BaaS

By embracing Cloud Backend-as-a-Service, enterprises can empower rapid development, elevate scalability, optimize user experiences, and stay at the forefront of innovation. Here are some real-life examples of enterprises leveraging the Backend-as-a-Service.

Uber

Uber employs Cloud Backend as a Service (BaaS) to streamline its operations. BaaS facilitates real-time updates on ride status, ensuring seamless communication between drivers and users. Also, by employing BaaS, Uber manages vast amounts of data related to trips and payments.

It also enables Uber to scale rapidly, efficiently handle large user bases, and maintain a reliable and responsive platform. This approach allows Uber’s developers to focus more on enhancing user experiences and expanding their service offerings while the underlying backend complexities are managed by the BaaS provider, contributing to the platform’s success.

Samsung

Samsung R&D utilizes Cloud Backend as a Service (BaaS) to improve the performance of its services and apps. BaaS enables seamless data storage, user authentication, and backend management, allowing Samsung to focus on innovation without the intricacies of infrastructure maintenance.

Samsung R&D Cloud assures rapid development cycles, shortens new product time-to-market, and effectively grows its applications with BaaS. By streamlining data handling, the cloud-based backend gives Samsung a scalable and adaptable platform to offer innovative solutions for a wide range of goods and services.

Apple

Apple, the leading technology company, strategically employs Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) to strengthen its vast network of services and apps. BaaS acts as a catalyst for Apple, simplifying the complexities of backend processes for a range of services, including the App Store, Apple Music, and iCloud.

By skillfully utilizing BaaS, Apple can focus its efforts on providing smooth user experiences and raising the bar for the reliability and safety of its services. Through this smart integration, Apple can maintain its leadership in the industry while giving developers easy access to powerful backend features and resources.

Alaska Airlines

Alaska Airlines improved the backend functionality of its mobile application by carefully integrating Microsoft Azure Mobile Apps. By utilizing Azure’s array of services, which encompass data storage, authentication, and seamless integration, the airline significantly improved the quality of its mobile experience.

This adoption strengthened the app’s functionality and security protocols while streamlining backend operations. By choosing Microsoft Azure Mobile Apps, Alaska Airlines has demonstrated its dedication to offering a safe and smooth digital experience that meets the changing needs of modern travelers.

Shazam

Shazam, a well-acclaimed music recognition app, implemented a BaaS platform to manage user authentication and real-time data synchronization. Shazam effectively managed the crucial backend tasks by using Firebase, freeing up the company to focus on providing users with an unmatched music recognition experience.

Shazam was freed from the complexities of backend infrastructure issues by the smooth integration with Firebase, which allowed them to concentrate more on improving the user experience and providing a high-quality, responsive music recognition service. This calculated approach highlights Shazam’s dedication to providing a state-of-the-art, user-focused application free from the burdens of extensive backend processes.

Business Constraints with Backend-as-a-Service and Solutions to Overcome Those

Although BaaS services have a long list of benefits that can easily integrate with front-end programming, the service also contains a few minor inherent flaws. This includes:

Lesser Control Over the Coding Structure

If you are too cautious about correcting the little lines of code, you might feel a sense of struggle while controlling the BaaS platform. You will save a lot of time in the development process, but the only problem is that you won’t get complete control of tweaking every small thing.

Solution: Businesses can alleviate the constraints on control by choosing BaaS providers that offer flexibility in coding customization. Furthermore, comprehensive documentation and assistance can help operate within the pre-established framework, guaranteeing a balance between control and development speed.

Vendor Lock-In

Another problem that most businesses face is the inability to move from one BaaS platform to another. While the service providers claim that the developers can migrate their applications, the technology might come as an obstacle in moving the code that connects both the back and front-end elements to a new platform. The developer must recreate the connections as the backend elements won’t move to the new provider or platform.

Solution: Companies should choose BaaS providers proactively, prioritizing data portability and interoperability. Using industry-standard APIs and protocols can help make switching between BaaS platforms easier. Encapsulating backend functionality and prioritizing modular coding approaches can further facilitate cloud migration.

Limited Customization Options

Although BaaS platforms are convenient, they may impose limitations on customization. It may be difficult for businesses with particular or unique requirements to customize the backend services to meet their demands properly. This limitation may impact the application’s overall flexibility.

Solution: Choosing BaaS providers that enable more customization or using a hybrid strategy in which essential components are controlled internally can help address this limitation. This method leverages the simplicity of BaaS while offering the necessary flexibility to customize backend services to unique company needs.

Data Security Issues

There are security issues when entrusting confidential data to a third-party BaaS supplier. While trustworthy suppliers put strong security measures in place, companies still need to assess industry standards closely and ensure they follow them to protect user data and comply with regulations.

Solution: A thorough assessment of BaaS providers based on their security procedures and compliance certifications is necessary to mitigate cloud security risks. Sensitive data in the Cloud Backend-as-a-Service environment can be further protected by utilizing end-to-end encryption, secure communication methods, and frequent security audits.

Scalability Issues

Although BaaS is meant to improve scalability, enterprises could run into issues when trying to go above the set limits of the selected platform. Unexpected increases in user activity or changing business needs may call for complex modifications within the current BaaS architecture.

Solution: Businesses should choose BaaS providers that provide simple scaling alternatives or hybrid approaches that enable the smooth movement of specific functionality in-house as scalability requirements change to solve scalability problems. It is crucial to regularly re-evaluate the needs for scalability and select providers who align with plans for future expansion.

Integration Complexities

There might be challenges when integrating BaaS with third-party services or current systems. A company’s ability to seamlessly integrate BaaS into its technology stack may be hampered by compatibility issues or the requirement for significant alterations to conform to current infrastructure.

Solution: Companies can overcome integration challenges by carefully evaluating BaaS providers’ system compatibility. Selecting suppliers with established integration standards and thoroughly documented APIs makes integration easier. Reduced interruptions can also be achieved by integrating components gradually, beginning with less important ones.

Let the Cloud Consultants of Appinventiv Help You Out

The main reason to utilize BaaS platform is to reduce the app launch time, outsource the infrastructure management, and lower the development cost. This BaaS implementation works perfectly for mobile and web apps.

At Appinventiv, we have helped several clients in their backend development journey. With a team of excellent tech wizards, we provide robust Cloud Backend-as-a-Service solutions that streamline your business operations. Our experts realize that in an era of disruption, a serverless infrastructure can offer much-needed agility to the business for its quick growth.

As we gradually move to the digitized world, the user experience takes the topmost position. Businesses are now required to consistently juggle to keep up with the expectations of their end-users. If you are someone whose organization needs to stack up on the benefits of serverless computing or BaaS solution, then avail the cloud services of Appinventiv and start reaping the benefits of BaaS. Connect with us!

FAQs

Q. What features does a Cloud Backend-as-a-Service have?

A. Cloud Backend-as-a-Service has the following list of features:

• Two Factor Authentication: Two-Factor Authentication adds an additional layer of security to user authentication by enabling users with two different types of authentication factors. Typically, this involves something the user knows (like a password) and something the user has access to (like a mobile device for receiving a verification code).
• Data Management: BaaS providers offer data management features, allowing developers to store, retrieve, and manipulate data in the backend. This can include features such as file storage, database storage, and data querying.
• Real-time database: A real-time database allows mobile apps to update and constantly synchronize data in real-time across different devices. This is vital for applications that require instant updates, such as messaging apps, collaborative tools, or live tracking systems.
• User authentication: One essential feature that lets developers safely handle user identities is user authentication. Authentication services, such as sign-up, login, password recovery, and user profile management, are frequently provided by BaaS platforms.
• Social Integration: Popular social media platforms are often integrated with BaaS services. This feature streamlines the authentication process and improves user experience by enabling users to sign in or register using their social network accounts (such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter).
• Email Verification: An essential stage in user authentication and registration is email verification. Email verification features entail sending users confirmation emails with special tokens or links throughout the registration process to check the validity of their email addresses.

Q. What is the common example of BaaS?

A. Instagram is a well-known example, as it uses BaaS to manage its backend mobile services. Instagram relies on BaaS to manage server-related operations, push notifications, data storage for user-generated content, and connection with several social media networks. This enables Instagram to focus on providing a flawless user experience and let the BaaS provider handle the backend complexity.

Q. What is the difference between PaaS and BaaS?

A. PaaS, also known as Platform as a service, is a kind of cloud computing model that offers both software resources and hardware infrastructure. BaaS, on the other hand, stands for Backend-as-a-Service, offers access to the entire cloud infrastructure, and performs the backend task automation.

THE AUTHOR

Sudeep Srivastava

Co-Founder and Director