As much as mobile backend-as-a-service (BaaS) platforms free up developers from having to worry about the infrastructure that support their applications, they do generally come with a downside; most of them lock the developer into a particular cloud platform. With that issue in mind, FeedHenry created a namesake BaaS platform that took advantage of Node.js to create a BaaS platform that developers could deploy and ultimately move to any cloud platform of their choice.
With the release of FeedHenry 3, the company is now extending the capabilities of the platform by adding support for Xamarin, Appcelerator, Angular and Backbone application development framework, while at the same time expanding its support of HTML5/Javascript frameworks.
In addition, FeedHenry 3 provides support for re-usable templates, app forms and connectors that speed up creation of apps, prototyping, and support for collaborative workflows that make developing applications that depend on APIs simpler.
FeedHenry CEO Cathal McGoin says one of the things that distinguishes Feed Henry is its ability to support collaborative application development environments across distributed geographies. By providing workflow tools McGoin says FeedHenry makes it easier to manage application factories that organizations are creating to simultaneously build 50 or more applications using teams of developers that reside in multiple countries. McGoin says that FeedHenry also provides the tools developers need to more easily discover what APIs have been published on the company’s BaaS platform and the functions they make available.
In effect, McGoin says FeedHenry, which was originally developed at the Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland, supplements the benefits of a BaaS platform with built in API management capabilities that are optimized for developers of mobile applications. For example, FeedHenry allows developers to create their own backend APIs in Node.js and share them via the FeedHenry BaaS platform.
In the race to develop mobile applications in the era of the cloud, many developers are looking past any potential lock-in issues that might surface down the road. While there is no shortage of BaaS options out there, no one can be sure what cloud service providers will still be in business this time next year. As such, developers might want make sure they keep all their options open when it comes to deploying applications that one day they may want to move in a hurry for one unexpected reason or another.
