Google Updates Firebase Platform For Its Cloud Services

Google has updated Firebase, its mobile platform used to develop mobile apps, to include closer integration with its cloud platform.

Google made the announcement at its Google Cloud Next conference in San Francisco.

It said that Cloud Functions for Firebase now offers a full back-end and serverless solution, while Cloud Storage for Firebase improves the app storage experience for developers.

Cloud Platform

It should be remembered that Google Firebase allows developers to build apps across a variety of platforms. Firebase also provides development tools, as well as testing, monetisation, and infrastructure options for the developer.

“Cloud Functions is a great way to build lightweight back-ends, and to extend the functionality of existing services,” blogged Google.

“For example, Cloud Functions can respond to file changes in Google Cloud Storage or incoming Google Cloud Pub/Sub messages, perform lightweight data processing/ETL jobs or provide a layer of logic to respond to webhooks emitted by any event on the internet. Developers can securely invoke Cloud Functions directly over HTTP right out of the box without the need for any add-on services,” it wrote.

“Cloud Functions is also a great option for mobile developers using Firebase, allowing them to build back-ends integrated with the Firebase platform,” it added. “Cloud Functions for Firebase handles events emitted from the Firebase Realtime Database, Firebase Authentication and Firebase Analytics.”

Google acquired Firebase back in 2014, and last year it integrated Firebase with Google Analytics, Cloud Messaging, and other Google services.

Firebase Storage is also changing its name and will now be known as Cloud Storage for Firebase.

Along with the name change there are also some additional data storage options, so that developers can now apparently use any Google Cloud Storage bucket in any region around the world.

Cloud Wars

Google is working hard to broaden the appeal of its Cloud platform, as are its chief rivals including Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Last month Google opened up access to Nvidia graphics cards on its Compute Engine and Cloud Machine Learning platforms, enabling users to access additional computational horsepower for training smart software and artificial intelligence (AI).

And in January Google beefed up its security credentials with a new tool called the ‘Google Cloud Key Management Service’ (Cloud KMS), designed to increase the numbers of customers encrypting their data.

The thinking was that with Cloud KMS, customers of the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) could now have the ability to select the right security solution depending on the sensitivity of their data

Quiz. Are you a security guru?