Backend for SPA and Mobile App (Serverless)
Introduction
Single Page Applications (SPAs) and mobile apps can use APIs to communicate with a server and retrieve or manipulate data. This can be used to display data on the frontend, or to send data to the server to be stored.
This article constitutes a component of a comprehensive collection of web architecture pattern references.
Single Page Application Frontend
Backend for SPA and Mobile App (Managed Services)
Backend for SPA and Mobile App (Serverless)
Multi Page Application (Integrated Web)
Single Page Application with Worker Process
API Technologies
For the backend of a mobile app or SPA, various API technologies can be used, including:
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REST (Representational State Transfer): This is a popular, lightweight, and scalable API technology that uses HTTP requests to perform operations on resources.
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GraphQL: This is a newer API technology that provides a more flexible and efficient alternative to REST, allowing clients to request only the data they need.
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gRPC: This is a high-performance, open-source framework for building scalable APIs. It uses the Protocol Buffers data format and supports a variety of programming languages.
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SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol): This is an XML-based protocol for exchanging structured information in the implementation of web services.
These API technologies can be used to create APIs that can be consumed by mobile apps or SPAs. The choice of technology depends on the specific requirements of the project, such as performance, security, and data exchange requirements.
Architecture
The architecture for all the above API technologies will be almost the same. We are considering the REST API for now as that is the most popular option.
There are different solutions and services to host the SPA Backend on cloud, here are some of the popular:
- VM (eg: EC2)
- Container Services (eg: ECS)
- Managed Services (eg: Elastic Beanstalk)
- Serverless (eg: Lambda)
- Kubernetes (eg: EKS)
Among the above list, we’re covering only Serverless and Managed Services.
Serverless
Using a serverless architecture has several benefits, including:
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Cost-effectiveness: Serverless architectures allow you to pay only for the resources you actually use, making it a cost-effective solution for both small and large scale applications.
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Scalability: Serverless architectures automatically scale to meet changing demand, eliminating the need for manual scaling and allowing organizations to focus on delivering value to their customers.
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Reduced operational overhead: By outsourcing infrastructure management to the cloud provider, organizations can reduce operational overhead and focus on writing code and delivering features.
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Improved time-to-market: Serverless architectures allow developers to focus on writing code, rather than managing infrastructure, improving time-to-market for new features and applications.
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Flexibility: Serverless architectures provide a flexible and modular approach to building applications, allowing organizations to easily modify and extend their applications as needed.
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High availability: Serverless architectures are designed to be highly available, with automatic failover and replication to ensure that applications remain available even in the event of a failure.
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Improved security: Serverless architectures provide built-in security features, such as automatic patching and secure data storage, reducing the security burden on organizations.
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Easy integration with other services: Serverless architectures integrate seamlessly with other cloud services, allowing organizations to leverage the full suite of cloud services to build and deploy their applications.
A complete architecture diagram with frontend and backend would be as follows:
