NoSQL database company Couchbase is releasing an update to its mobile platform that will introduce preview support for ForestDB, bringing the Couchbase storage engine to mobile and promoting a new way of building mobile applications with or without an internet connection.
By combining Couchbase Lite, Couchbase Sync Gateway and Server, the mobile platform provides developers with a powerful, new platform for building network-independent mobile apps, reducing the code needed to manage data synchronization and substantially accelerating time to market.
“Now we’re not tethered to our desks and we’re not tethered to the network availability,” said Wayne Carter, chief architect of mobile at Couchbase. “This is something we are observing and a lot of developers are thinking this way. This shift is really driving the adoption of the Couchbase Mobile technology and other technologies like this.”
Along with support for ForestDB, the new update, titled version 1.1, adds change notification capabilities to the cloud database. By using change notifications, or web hooks, developers no longer have to write custom code to poll for changes within either the cloud or device database. By reducing the amount of code, this functionality saves time for developers, helping them to get their applications to market quicker than ever before. Additionally, with the 1.1 update when data is changed in the cloud or device database, external services and systems are notified and can run the appropriate application logic.
Feedback by users has been strong, with 100,000 developers utilizing the system, according to Carter, which is an increase of over 90,000 from one year ago. “That’s significantly up from the 3,000 developers that were using Couchbase Mobile last year,” Carter said. “Over half of that growth has happened in the last three months.”
Users have been requesting better integration with external and legacy systems, Carter said. “We’ve been seeing a lot of requests for features for that integration. In 1.1 we released a feature that makes that integration significantly less effort for our customers. It’s called web hooks.” Additionally, users wanted to work with more platforms, Carter said, which led them to adding support for iOS, Android, OSX, Linux, Windows, Microsoft.net framework, Unity and others.
For more information about this update, go here.