What is AWS AppSync? | The comparison

What is AWS AppSync? | The comparison

Applications that rely on data in cloud storage don't need to be up to date every minute of the day. Think of a social media app. This is "real-time" data, such as a new message or a photo upload, but most data, such as account information, user profile, and where you're logged in from high school, doesn't need to be updated. constantly. In a gaming app, there's a lot of real-time data, like your current location on a map (which is constantly changing), but your credit card number is likely to stay the same month after month. Continuously updating all the data from a mobile or web application is pointless and just consumes unnecessary resources. AWS AppSync is a way to sync data used in a web or mobile app, allowing developers to choose the data to sync in real time. AppSync relies on GraphQL, originally developed by Facebook, for data synchronization. Its goal is to help developers who may need to pull data from different sources in the cloud and then run functions in the app quickly and efficiently. It's also highly secure, even if an app syncs from multiple data sources and developers choose which parts of an app can or can't use real-time data, the data is still protected. As mentioned, the application development service is aimed at those who need to process large amounts of data in real time and synchronize this data with the application. However, they must also be able to decide what data does not need to be synced in real time. Developers can create complex queries that use a cloud database and aggregate data or make complex decisions to analyze, process, or manipulate from multiple sources. The advantage here is that you can easily scale an application and use multiple Amazon services for your application, without being limited by your IT infrastructure or data location (and if you have to process all the data in real time). Another benefit is that you can work with data that is offline for periods of time. In a gaming app, for example, the developer can sync data in real time, but also coordinate what happens when the end user continues to play the game and score high when no longer connected to the internet. AppSync can sync data offline once the user signs in again without having to sync all data. This reduces bandwidth requirements and speeds up data synchronization for the web or mobile application.

AWS Appsync usage examples

An example of using AWS AppSync is with a Big Data project. Often with a research project at a large university, for example, the data sources are widely disseminated. For a project looking at new road construction, there may be data available related to materials research in Zurich and environmental data from a lab in Munich, but the development team at ; the app is based in Chicago. In the past, synchronizing all of this data for an application, as well as deciding what data was mission-critical and needed to be real-time in nature and what data could be stored long-term and out of sync, was quite a company. This often requires a combination of multiple cloud services and a way to manually sync all data sources. Still, AWS AppSync provides a console for developers to understand its APIs and what happens to their data. Another example of AWS AppSync in practical use is when developers create a smart home app, which monitors home safety and security issues. Sensors can be installed to detect water leaks, search for intruders, and check if a window was suddenly opened in the middle of the night. The Internet of Things (or IoT) is a concept that has allowed developers to create rich applications that unify and unite these disparate sensors to present a clear picture of what is happening at home. As you can imagine, extracting and monitoring this sensor data is a Herculean task. There can be thousands or even millions of data requests from an app, for example, every time someone opens a door or when a sensor detects a moving object. In a connected home app, some data may be at rest and doesn't need to be in sync. With AWS AppSync, a developer can decide how to sync this data and what happens in real time in the app, not just for the dozens of sensors that might be installed in a smart home, but for hundreds or thousands of customers. Ultimately, it is the flexibility it provides that is essential for developers building rich applications that use multiple data sets from a wide variety of sources from around the world.