Building Mobile Apps with Apache UserGrid, the Open Source Baas

Dave Johnson
Apigee
Building Mobile Apps with Apache
Usergrid, the Open Source BaaS

© 2013 Apigee Confidential – All Rights ReservedThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.© Copyright Apigee 2
Agenda
» Overview: why Usergrid
» Exploring the Usergrid API
» Creating an app with Usergrid
» v1 - Add Logins & Signup
» v2 - Add Checkins
» v3 - Add Follower relationships
» v4 - Package & run via Apache Cordova
» Running & Deploying Usergrid
» Q & A

Why Usergrid?
» Don’t build a server
PHP
Ruby Java
NodeMySQL PaaS
Services in
the “cloud”
App Server Cloud

Why Usergrid?
» Focus on building your app
Services in
the “cloud”
App Cloud

What is Usergrid?
!
» Mobile Backend as a Service (mBaaS)
!
» Backend as a Service (BaaS)
!
» Database as a Service (DBaaS)
!
» REST API wrapped around Cassandra DB

What is Usergrid?
» A Web Application
!
» A Management Portal
!
» Client SDKs
» iOS, Android, JavaScript, Node, Ruby,
Java, Perl, .Net, Command-line, …

What is Usergrid?
» Core services you need to build apps:
» JSON object indexing & query
» Geo-location & geo-queries
» Connections & Collections
» Users, Groups, Social Graph
» Authentication, Roles & Permissions
» Asset & File Management
!
» Soon: Push Notifications

What is Usergrid?

An Apache Incubator Project

Usergrid REST API
» JSON over HTTP
» POST, GET, PUT and DELETE JSON Entities
!
» Entities have UUID, Name, Type
» Entities have name/value properties
!
» All Entity properties are indexed
» SQL-like syntax for Entity queries

Usergrid REST API
»Each application has root URL like this
»http:// host/${org}/${app}
!
» Entities exist in Collections
»http:// host/${org}/${app}/${collection}
!
» And you can define Collections of custom
Entities with any properties you want

Usergrid REST API
» There are special built-in Entity Collections:
» http:// host/${org}/${app}/users
» http:// host/${org}/${app}/groups
» http:// host/${org}/${app}/roles
» http:// host/${org}/${app}/activities
» http:// host/${org}/${app}/assets

Connections
» Entities can have Connections to other Entities
!
» For example, to get all Entities that Dave is
connected to via a connection of type “pets”
!
» http:// host/${org}/${app}/users/dave/pets

Collecting Cats
» Demo the Portal
!
» Create Application
» Create User Dave with Default Role
» Create Cats Collection
» Setup “Dave has Cats” Connections

Let’s create a checkin app
» A simple checkin app to demonstrate
Usergrid features:
!
» Login & signup
» Roles & Permissions
» Following, Followers and Checkins
» Usergrid JavaScript SDK
!
» Built with jQueryMobile & Cordova

Define the data model
» Usergrid provides the basic REST API
!
» You must decide:
» Entity Types & Properties
» Entity Connections
» Users Roles & Permissions

Entities & Connections
» Entity Collections
» Users
» Checkins
!
» Entity Connections
» Users Follow Users
» Users Have Checkins

User Role: Guest
» User who has not signed up yet
» Permissions User with Guest Role:
!
!
!
!
» Guest user POSTs to register
» Usergrid takes care of account activation
GET POST PUT DELETE
/users/* 🚫 ✅ 🚫 🚫

User Role: Default
» Permissions for User with Default Role:
GET POST PUT DELETE
/users/${user}/** ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
/activities/* ✅ 🚫 🚫 🚫
/users/* ✅ 🚫 🚫 🚫
/users/${user} ✅ 🚫 ✅ 🚫

App setup in the Portal
» Quick demo
!
» Take a look at Roles & Permissions
» Ensure they are setup right

Getting started
» Pre-requisites:
!
» Usergrid JavaScript SDK
!
» jQuery Mobile
!
» Apache Cordova
!
» Your favorite dev environment

Get setup in an IDE

JavaScript SDK - login
var client = new Usergrid.Client({
appName: 'checkin1',
orgName: 'test-organization',
URI: 'http://10.1.1.161:8080'
});
!
client.login(username, password, function(err, res, entity) {
if (err) {
// inform user of error
} else {
// change to View Checkins page
}
});

jQueryMobile

JQuery Mobile page structure
<div data-role="page" id=“my-page-id“ data-theme=“a”>
!
<div data-role="header" data-theme="a">
// header goes here
</div>
<div data-role="content">
// page goes here
</div>
<div data-role="footer" data-theme="a">
// footer goes here
</div>
</div>

Apache Cordova

Apache Cordova
» Hybrid approach to mobile apps:
» Write code in with HTML5 & JavaScript
» Package as a truly native app
» Access device features: camera, contacts, etc.
!
» iOS and Android, but also Amazon Fire,
Blackberry, Windows Phone and more
!
» Tool support: Adobe, Eclipse, Netbeans,
IntelliJ, etc.

Get setup in an IDE
» Demo time
!
!
!
!
!
!
» Create Cordova project in IDE
» Add Login & Registration Page

Checkins as Activities
» Usergrid supports notion of Activity
» And supports a “Following” Connection
!
» Users post Activities to their own Collection
» POST /users/${user}/activities!
!
» Users can see Activities those they follow
» GET /activities

JavaScript SDK - create checkin
var data = {
type: “checkin",
content: content,
verb: “post",
actor: { username: user.get(“username") }
};
client.createUserActivity(user.get("username"), data,
function( err, response, activity ) {
if (err) {
// alert user of error
} else {
// send user back to View Checkins page
}
});

What we’ll add
» View Checkins Page
!
» Add a Create Checkin Page
!
» View Single Checkin Page

Usergrid Social Graph
» Usergrid provides Social Graph features
including Following and Groups
!
» Fred can follow Barney:
» POST /users/fred/following/barney!
!
» Fred can see his followers:
» GET /users/fred/followers

JavaScript SDK - follow user
var target = // user to be followed
var options = {
method: 'POST',
endpoint: ‘/users/' + me + '/following/users/' + target
};
!
client.request(options, function (err, data) {
if (err) {
alert("Unable to follow user " + target);
} else {
alert("Followed user " + target);
}
});

What we’ll add
» View Users Page
!
» View User Page with Follow Button

Apache Cordova
» Demo time
!
» Use Cordova to launch the app in iOS

Developing with Usergrid
» Three ways to run Usergrid locally:
» All-in-one Usergrid Launcher
» Install Tomcat, Cassandra and Usergrid
» Start Usergrid instance via Vagrant
!
» Or find a BaaS provider that runs Usergrid:
» e.g. Apigee’s API BaaS is free to use

Usergrid deployment options
» Do it yourself with Tomcat, Cassandra and
Puppet, Chef, etc.
!
» Do it yourself on AWS via Usergrid AWSCluster
» AWS Cloud Formation Template
» Plus supporting Bash and Groovy scripts
!
» Let somebody else run it for you…
» Hint hint 😃

Deployment Architecture UG1
Mobile
Cassandra
Cluster
Load
Balancer
Web Tomcats
(shared nothing)

Deployment Architecture UG2
Mobile
Cassandra
Cluster
Load
Balancer
ElasticSearch
Cluster
Web Tomcats
(shared nothing)
Distributed
Queue

Questions?
» Apache Usergrid
» http://usergrid.incubator.apache.org
!
» Apigee API BaaS
» http://goo.gl/zcjRxC
!
» Dave Johnson
» https://github.com/snoopdave/
» usergrid-mobile
» usergrid-vagrant
» http://twitter.com/snoopdave
» http://rollerweblogger.org/roller

Building Mobile Apps with Apache UserGrid, the Open Source Baas

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (18)

Similar to Building Mobile Apps with Apache UserGrid, the Open Source Baas

Similar to Building Mobile Apps with Apache UserGrid, the Open Source Baas (20)

More from All Things Open

More from All Things Open (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Building Mobile Apps with Apache UserGrid, the Open Source Baas