Backend as a Service essentially is a new kind of ‘Cloud Service’ that mobile app developers are finding to be a major time saver by reducing their efforts to develop backend servers. In addition to saving time it also creates a standard within the app development architecture allowing more stable apps that respond quicker that most custom developed backend servers.

What kind of Baas exist?

Since Baas is a backend cloud based service, what they offer developers is a way to cut out a lot of coding by providing a service such as ‘Push Notifications’ and Data Storage. Essentially it allows mobile developers the ability to connect their apps to cloud storage and Data processing as well as Social Networking integration, user management and many other features that are in high demand these days.  A good example is Amazon Web Services, which offers developers a cloud computing solution.

This service is said to grow to the $7.7 Billion dollar per year industry by the year 2017 and is rapidly growing to meet consumer demands.

Benefits of Baas

The ultimate purpose of Baas is to simplify the life of the developer. Most developers, pre-baas, had to code any back end application, process themselves which increased App size and raised the difficulty of the coding process. What Baas provides the Developer is:

• Reduction of Overhead in all stages of App development
• Quicker Marketing times by removing obstacles in coding
• Need fewer resources to make an app
• Optimization for Mobile Devices (quicker response)
• Secure
• Scalable
• Ability to Stack common APIs

Baas allows the developer to access a cloud instead of having to do it all by themselves. Think of building a house either brick by brick, or having someone already fashion whole sections of the house which you can use as you please.

Essentially these services provide an entire ‘piece of the puzzle’ which you can simply ‘plug in’ to your app. This allows the developer to take the idea and bring it to the market in far less time, with less worries about these APIs failing.

Baas will never be able to take on specific elements unique to your app but rather approaches the Mobile App development world by providing the pre-fabricated resources for ‘most common APIs’.

In other words, almost every app has some sort of ‘Connect to Social Media’ button. Baas would essentially take care of the entire coding of that for you and provide that as a service.

You can rest assured that entire corporations are working on that aspect of your app leaving you more time to work on the finer details that make your app special.

What does this mean for developers?

The Sky’s the limit and as the Baas industry continues to expand app development will become faster, more efficient and will rely heavier on Baas services. These kinds of services elevates the ‘every day coder’ to the same field as ‘professional coders’ which is quite amazing. In other words, Baas is to the Mobile Development world what After Effects is to filmmaking.