Google Cloud – Firebase

What is Firebase?

Firebase is a BaaS (Backend-as-a-Service ) platform which has grown as next-generation app-development platform on Google Cloud Platform. It allows you to develop a web/mobile application and deploy it without any server side programming which results in easy and faster development process.

Firebase gives developers the tools to develop high-quality apps and grow their user base. Firebase covers the essentials so developer can monetize their business and focus on the users. Firebase offers so many useful features and few of them are listed below:

Features:-

Firebase Cloud Functions:

Cloud functions for Firebase allows you to automatically run backend code in response to events triggered by Firebase features and HTTPS requests. Your code get stored on Google cloud and runs in a managed environment. There’s no need to manage and scale your own servers.

Cloud Functions gives developer to access to Firebase and Google Cloud events, along with scalable computing power to run code in response to those events. While it is expected that Firebase apps will use Cloud Functions in unique way to meet their unique requirements, typical use cases might fall into below areas:

• Notify users when any activity happened on App.
• Perform Real-time Database sanitization and maintenance.
• Execute intensive tasks on the cloud instead over your app.
• Integrate with third-party services and APIs.

Firebase Real-time Database:

The Firebase Realtime Database is a cloud-hosted NoSQL database that lets you store and sync data between your users in real time.

In Real-time database, data is stored as JSON and synchronized in realtime to every connected client. When you build cross-platform apps with our iOS, Android, and JavaScript SDKs, all of your clients share one Realtime Database instance and automatically receive updates with the newest data. We can use real-time database for following purpose:

• Collaborate across devices with ease.
• Build serverless apps.
• Optimized for offline use.
• Strong user-based security

Firebase Authentication:

Firebase Authentication provides backend services, easy-to-use SDKs, and ready-made UI libraries to authenticate users to your app. It supports authentication using passwords, phone numbers, popular federated identity providers like Google, Facebook and Twitter, and more.

Firebase Authentication integrates tightly with other Firebase services, and it leverages industry standards like OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect, so it can be easily integrated with your custom backend. Features that firebase authentication provides:

• Easy sign-in with any platform: It provides an end-to-end identity solution, supporting email and password accounts, phone auth, and Google, Twitter, Facebook, and GitHub login, and more.
• Flexible, drop-in UI: FirebaseUI provides a customizable, open source, drop-in auth solution that handles the UI flows for signing in users.
• Comprehensive security
• Fast implementation

Firebase Hosting:

Firebase Hosting is built for the modern web developer. Static sites are more powerful than ever with the rise of front-end JavaScript frameworks like Angular or React or any other. Hosting gives you the infrastructure, features, and tooling tailored to deploying and managing static websites.

Hosting gives your project a subdomain on the firebaseapp.com domain. Using the Firebase CLI, you can deploy files from local directories on your computer to your Hosting server. Files are served over an SSL connection from the closest edge server on our global CDN.

Firebase hosting provides many useful features to maintain web hosting more fastly and securely. Below are the list of features:

• Deliver web content fast.
• SSD-backed hosting, around the globe.
• Free SSL certificates for custom domains.
• Deploy with one command.

In simple words, if someone would like to develop some simple web/mobile apps they can utilise firebase with its amazing features and develop it more faster and more easier. Main advantage of using firebase is it is a serverless architecture, easy to handle interfaces, easily integrable functionalities and cost effectiveness.