Firebase is a Real Time database system, that stores, synchronizes and shares user data in milliseconds. It is easy to setup and configure with your application. It also provides many tools and services to the developers such as, “authentication services” which manages user access in a secure manner with many authentications such as, username & password and Facebook and Google accounts. “Cloud Storage” allows users to store & share their media information like images, videos, audio clips, and Real Time database service that synchronizes user data across devices in real time–thereby allowing developers to accomplish their tasks in an effective manner.
MySQL is one of the relational database management systems provided by Oracle. It provides high levels of security, since it is managed by the database administrator, who can control & manage the entire database. It also provides a highly secure environment, with scalability that facilitates controlling large amounts of stored data while allowing the database expansion process in the future. While MySQL has many strengths,, it also has some limitations that affects development. Stability is one of the key weaknesses that makes MySQL less reliable than others, since it has limited functions & transactions that make the development process to be very limited. Sometimes MySQL may have poor performance scaling, which it makes the process of dealing with many simultaneous operations much more difficult.
Another Backend database system is MongoDB. This is a NoSQL and non-relation database. It is a document database that stores data in a flexible JASON as documents, which allows users to store data of different types. Although MongoDB provides flexibility and many other services to the developer, it has many strengths and weakness. One of its strengths is its high speed, since MongoDB provide access to the document by indexing which makes the retrieving process much faster. MongoDB also provides quick accessibility to data, since it has features like replication and gridFS, which enhance the speed of the data availability. MongoDB also has some weaknesses that affect reliability. One of the weaknesses is that MongoDB does not support the joint, like other relational database systems, which makes adding and updating processes less efficient. But there is solution for it that affects the performance and the execution aspect. In the implementation section, I have explained and illustrated the kind of Backend system that has been used for the project along with my rationale.
When the DBMS selection process was completed, developing and creating an iOS Mobile application process was started. The iOS Mobile Application is the base platform for the targeted system. It includes many features that gives the application several privileges & proprieties, so the selection process of the most effective features process has been applied (see Appendix table.1). When the development and creating process was completed with these features, the same for another platform was commenced.
There are many web platforms to build the targeted system which has been used in the comparison process. So the “search & select” process was applied to explore the most useful platform for the targeted system. The Web Application platform contains the same features of the iOS Application, and both use the same database and server. I have used HTML and JAVASCRIPT to develop the Web Application for the targeted system, since theses languages have facilitated the development aspects and they are much easier to configure with the system’s backend based on my experience. After the Web Application platform was completed, the testing processes for these two platforms were applied, to ensure that the all system level functions were connecting and working in an efficient manner.
Once these two platforms are completed and tested, the comparison process between both platforms was applied. These two platforms have been used to assess the targeted system based on four factors–compatibility, upgradability, reach and usability. In addition, there are many assessment factors that can be used to assess these two different platforms. However, based on my professional background and research, I have limited the comparison’s factors with just these four factors, since I believe that they are the most effective factors based on Capstone’s idea. This comparison was concluded with results and personal views, which depicts the most ideal platform with the most values for assessment.