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Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) provider Built.io this week announced Built.io Backend 3.0, the latest release of its platform, which provides developers with a customizable environment for building mobile applications.
The new release’s pluggable architecture enables developers to integrate custom business logic into the Built.io platform’s code base. By introducing support for custom code, Built.io enables developers to further tailor applications with plug-ins that can call third party services or query and write data to other systems.
In a research report, Gigaom Research noted predicted that by 2017 the MBaaS market would evolve to adapt to the influences of DevOps and Agile development methodologies.
“Over the next 24 months, the MBaaS market will be disrupted by five Disruption Vectors: a convergence of features from multiple products, a growing importance of mobile-first development, a need for increased control of data assets, a need to unlock corporate data silos, and the growing influence of DevOps and Agile methodologies in mobile development,” the Gigaom report said.
Built.io Backend 3.0 signals this evolution as its pluggable architecture enables developers to deliver apps that execute custom code when APIs are called.
“In the coming years, the lines between MBaaS and PaaS will blur, and vendors will create a more integrated development stack,” the report added, noting that in the near term, enterprises should meet their needs with MBaaS offerings that provide the greatest flexibility in deployment and tool choice.
“We love the new Built.io Backend pluggable architecture,” Brianna DeMike, co-founder of ZenContent, said in a statement. “It enabled us to create a custom backend stack tailored exactly to our needs. Because the core is so lightweight, our apps now run three times faster in the cloud and with fewer resources needed than ever before.”
The new Built.io release also delivers direct database access via the company’s new MongoDB SDK. It also provides direct object data access so developers can access data in its raw format. In addition, Built.io Backend 3.0 features data set segmentation for enhanced security and database indexing for improved performance. The platform supports application development across mobile, the web and the internet of things (IoT).
“Previously, MBaaS solutions were either all DIY or 100 percent pre-built,” said Matthew Baier, COO of Built.io, in a statement. “You had to choose between convenience and control. With the rise of microservices, we set out to build something more customizable. Now developers can create a best-of-breed backend stack with any combination of out-of-the-box functionality, custom code upgrades and third party enhancements.”
Meanwhile, competing MBaaS provider, Kony, this week announced enhanced support for applications running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and updates to its offerings in AWS Marketplace. The company announced that its MBaaS, Kony MobileFabric 7, is available in AWS Marketplace.
Kony’s enhanced support for AWS includes AWS Gateway support, support for Kony Object Services on AWS, AWS cloud storage support and AWS IoT services support.
According to an IDC report, “Kony’s partnership with Amazon can help Kony create a unique value proposition around a deeply integrated development and deployment experience that builds on AWS’ cloud infrastructure.”
Barry Russell, general manager of Global Business Development for AWS Marketplace and Catalog Services at AWS, said, “By providing pre-integrated access to APIs on the AWS Cloud, Kony allows developers to rapidly assemble and build connected mobile and IoT applications for enterprise customers on AWS.”
Last month, Kony announced MobileFabric 7.0 new microservices and object services technology that enables development teams to set up software “app factories” for easily building new applications from reusable parts.
Kony MobileFabric 7 provides this new model-driven approach to mobile app development using microservices, said Burley Kawasaki, senior vice president of products at Kony. New support for object services makes it easier and cheaper to develop and maintain mobile apps, he said.
“Microservices are currently all the rage and it’s an area that we think has a lot of promise in terms of how customers build software,” Kawasaki told eWEEK. “This release of MobileFabric is all about providing a new capability that we call object services, which really helps you more easily manage the development of microservice-based applications.”