Google has released a new tool that would allow developers to reap the benefits of using a cloud backend for their apps without having to deal with the headaches of running their own servers, and it’s being leveraged particularly for mobile developers.

The Google Mobile Backend Starter is a one-click deployable, complete mobile backend that provides ready-to-deploy, general purpose cloud backend and a general purpose client-side framework for Android.

“The new tool essentially provides developers everything they need for their apps with a robust enough system to handle virtually any load a mobile app can throw at it.  To get started, developers simply have to select the Mobile Backend sample app when they start a new app engine project,” Kristin Feledy stated on her NewsDesk segment.

It gives developers everything they need to set up a backend for apps without having to write backend codes, servers that would store their data with App Engine, a client library and sample app for Android that make it easy to access that data, and developers can add support for Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) and continuous queries that notify your app of events developers are interested in.  And since everything must be secured, Google has thrown in built-in support for Google Authentication for Mobile Backend Starter.

Mobile Backend Starter Features

Cloud data storage that lets developers store any amount of data that can be accessed anywhere.

Pub/Sub messaging that lets developers send messages from one device, to any or all other devices being used and useful for various applications including social apps, forums, chat, gaming, and group collaborations.

Push notifications which updates data on all available devices.

Continuous queries to create queries that run continuously on the server and automatically feeds updates to  clients and is powered by Prospective Search.

Google authentication and authorization to keep data isolated per user or shared among users.

Free to get started, scales effortlessly with your needs which allows developers to handle hundreds of users for free and then eventually grow to any scale.

How to set it up

Go to http://cloud.google.com/console, create a project, then click deploy.

Click on settings to go to the admin panel for your new backend.  Under “Authentication / Authoirzation” select “Open (for development use only)” and save the changes.

Download the Android client project and open it up in your Android IDE. Locate the Consts.java file and set the PROJECT_ID to the Project ID you created in the Google Cloud Console.

The next step is the fun part as it entails developers to just enjoy building and running the Android application as you have a cloud enabled Android application for backup.  No more worrying.