ejabberd can be extended through an API. How does it work with ejabberd SaaS ?
Can I deploy a module I have developed ? Can I deploy a contributed module ?
ejabberd SaaS is designed to run a standard single platform that is identical for all customers.
As such it does not allow running custom modules (It would be a security risk).
However, it is design to offer API the users can implement to integrate with user backend as needed. There is a simple set of ReST endpoint to implement to be compliant and provide user authentication, contact list or message archive (more are on the way).
Related
I usually develop web apps with MEAN but I came to work for a business that uses Bigcommerce. I want to know if I can incorporate node.js applications into bigcommerce and if so, how?
Our API is language-agnostic, so you can use Node.js or any other language to integrate with a store. Here's a link to a community-contributed SDK that may help you get started:
https://github.com/getconversio/node-bigcommerce
This SDK provides methods for authenticating and making requests against the BigCommerce API. We are a SaaS platform, so any code that you write would be hosted on your own server. You can check out our developer documentation for more resources: https://developer.bigcommerce.com
We have been using Azure Easy API using Node.js for some of the mobile apps. Given the fact that the mobile apps stay in different versions, we need to have different versions of the same API available. In such a case, how do we carry out the versioning? Is there any azure documentation that someone can point to? thanks in advance.
There is no documentation on versioning for Azure Mobile Apps. Internally, we use the ZUMO-API-VERSION to switch between protocols. If you are using EasyAPI, then that is designed for the most simple cases - versioning of your API is not supported.
Instead of using EasyAPI, the site underneath is just a Node.js application. Download it (via Kudu), check it into source code, and use regular old Express routing for your API. You can then version it any which way you like.
If you need further information on versioning WebAPIs, I recommend Designing Evolvable Web APIs with ASP.NET - it's on ASP.NET, but covers a lot of the required semantics for versioning within it.
I have an existing Web API 2 project that I'm looking to move over to Azure Service Fabric. I'm planning on creating a single stateless service within Fabric as detailed here (mainly as I don't understand actors/services at the moment!) and move the API across.
My API uses Entity Framework for it's backend and the built in Individual Accounts using OWIN.
Is there anything I need to consider when moving the service over (I mainly thought the the DB and authentication might be an issue) or is it just a case of putting a Service Fabric layer on top?
Thanks
EDIT
I've had a bit more of a thought about this and have some more questions (based on #Mihail's comment)!
So I'm going to have many stateless services (so I'm splitting my Web API project up) which will be exposed via a Web API project (based on this)
So two questions really:
I need to authenticate users based on Individual Accounts. I think I should do this on the Web API frontend so only authenticated users get through to the Fabric services but that means that the API has access to the DB and it's not just a pass through anymore. Is this OK? Should the API call a microservice to authenticate and then call the service it requires or is this overkill?
Entity Framework. If I have many services (and API frontend) accessing the same DB do I have to worry about concurrent connections/locking or will Entity Framework handle this for me?
As Mihail said, the questions around Entity Framework and authentication shouldn't be a problem, or at least not a Service Fabric specific problem.
One thing to consider though is whether Service Fabric is appropriate here if the only thing you'll have is a simple API, or whether an Azure API app would be a better fit for you.
If you went with Service Fabric, you'd have to have at least 5 VMs so you'll need to consider whether your app requires 5 VMs or whether that would be an overkill. Also remember that you'll need to manage those VMs - you don't get the magic that a PaaS solution would give you. You'd also have to deal with certain things that you'd get out of the box from an API app like auto-scale, authentication, rate limiting, integration with SaaS applications, etc. Might be worth having a look at this SO question for a comparison between Service Fabric and the App Service.
Can anyone please point out any benefits of using Azure Mobile services vs using a plain Azure app service / clean web api? For a starter / project type for a backend mobile solution.
I have somewhat mixed feelings on why I would want to use Azure Mobile Services.
As far as I see on Azure Mobile services you have an easier way of authenticating, you can use the notifcations hub more easily
and you have the different "built-in" ways of handling data (table storage etc).
Usually you would want some custom logics, user registration and handling when users register to your backend and you would like a more solid way of handling
and storing the data not privided by the OOTB datastorage.
You might also have another preference than using the /Table/ odata-endpoint you get with it or end up doing lots of logics to make your DAO's return data in properly for the OData endpoints.
All these things; IMO makes it more difficult to make the API/backend clean when using Azure Mobile services rather than a simple Web API with OData endpoints and swagger documentet API that can be used in a mobile-app just as easy.
Implementing / handling authentication and notifications ++ in Web Api ain't that diffucult nor time consuming.
So my problem Azure Mobile services is that it tends to fine for dev / prototyping and testing, but it might get really messy really fast when developing a proper backend.
Any thoughts and reasons why one should choose one instead of the other?
Think of Azure Mobile Services as V1 and App Service/Mobile App as V2. While Microsoft hasn't announced that Mobile Services will be phased out in the near future, if you start a new project, you should definitively look at App Service.
due to the fact that many people are confused about wether to take Web API or Web App or something different. They are going to put it all under one name. The underlying technology will be the same "i think".
But now you'll have in your portal the opportunity to add mobile push notifications, or add your swagger api definitions.
So when you're goint to stick with App Services you're not going to limit yourself.
Even when you're going to take Web Api you'll get all the functions as if you would take an App Service (if i'm correct).
*Edit: I looked it up in the portal. As I said, my old Web App Projects have the same settings as Web Api projects. So you don't need to decide anymore which kind of project you're taking. You get all the benefits out of the App Service.
I have a WebAPI back-end for a mobile, and want to host it in Azure.
I am having a hard time figuring out the real differences between AMS and Websites.
All the articles I read about the subject talks about changes and benefits in general, and I want to understand specifically which new features AMS provides, and the benefits of hosting in AMS.
Authentication
In AMS I see the "IDENTITY" tab in azure portal. From what I understand, those 3rd party configs allow me to authenticate my users easily with google,FB etc. But this is just making the process more convenient and configurable via UI. In Websites, I can achieve the same functionality pretty easily using code from ASPNet.Identity and OWIN libraris.
Push Notifications
Again looking at AMS in the "PUSH" tab, I can see two mechanisms. The Notification Hub and 3rd party section.
The Notification Hub is nothing special to AMS, and I can get the exact same functionality when hosting in Websites.
The 3rd party section allows me to configure credentials to push services from Apple and Google (APNS,GCM...) and together with libraries in AMS namespace I can easily write code to communicate with those services.
But When hosting in Websites, in my back-end I can use open source libraries. For example, Moon-APNS to talk to APNS.
Scale
As far as I understand, both Websites and AMS allows the same scale functionality (One calls it Units and the other Instances).
Are there any big differences I missed?
Are any of the claims I made are incorrect?
It would be great if anyone could shed some light on the matter, specifically addressing all the 3 issues (Auth,Push,Scale).
That's a question I often get when I present Mobile Services at user group events.
For a .NET developer, there's nothing really special about Mobile Services since everything it offers, you can do it with a Website.
Mobile Services really shines for non .NET developers since you can have a complete mobile backend by writing scripts running on Node and Mobile Services abstract all the database and REST complexity.
I will likely get downvoted since I'll express a personal opinion but anyways: I see no obvious reasons for using Mobile Services if you're coding a .NET backend.
I think you are exactly the target customer for Azure Mobile Apps. You will get all of the power of having your own Azure Website (now rebranded as Azure Web App), with the additional convenience and client libraries of Mobile Services.
One feature of the client library that you may not have noticed is the cross-platform offline data sync capability. That's usually hard to build on your own, and we have an implementation that's conceptually consistent across all client platforms. (Plus, if you use Xamarin, you can share code between your client implementations.)
To be clear: Azure Mobile Services is NOT deprecated, and will not be until long after GA (general availability) of Azure Mobile Apps. Azure Mobile Apps is currently in preview.
The other big benefit of Mobile Services that you haven't mentioned is the client libraries for Android, iOS, Xamarin, and Cordova. If you already have a REST client library in your app and don't need to worry about multiple client platforms, then Azure Web Sites sound like a good way for you to go.
AMS by itself is built on top of Azure Websites. So you can actually implement everything in an Azure website that is available in AMS.
However, the good thing about AMS is that it allows you to quickly build the backend for a mobile app with CRUD operations, authentication/authorization and also provides client side libraries for different type of clients e.g., HTML, C#, etc. so we don't have to manually make the HTTP calls.
If you have need to implement the above functionality in Web API, it is quite an effort. Isn't it?