The overall positioning of EMAS is the main window for Alibaba’s mobile technology export, which precipitates alibaba’s accumulation of mobile Internet technology architecture in the past 10 years and core technical capabilities practiced in a series of vertical scenes. On the one hand, EMAS hope for the majority of developers to provide a safe, stable, fast and flexible mobile application infrastructure, on the other hand also hope to help the small and medium-sized enterprises, start-up teams, and in the “Internet +” transition stage of traditional enterprise intelligent building engineering, systematic and enterprise research and development of mobile Internet system, And nearly ten years of Alibaba in the mobile Internet summary and precipitation of a series of methodologies to share with the industry.
Since its first public test in 2015, EMAS has served nearly 1.4 billion mobile terminal devices, 200,000 APPS and 100,000 mobile developers, which has influenced the development of the entire domestic mobile development ecosystem to some extent.
With the continuous evolution of technology, mobile Internet has become an indispensable part of the global business ecosystem. In a word, EMAS ‘vision is “30 days with you to recreate a mobile Taobao”. The implication behind this is that no matter how small the scale of entrepreneurial teams can quickly and conveniently have a complete infrastructure like mobile Taobao and Alipay based on EMAS services, and can embrace the era of mobile Internet at a low cost. At present, EMAS is in the stage of rapid forward iterative development. In the future, more and more excellent mobile basic services within Alibaba Group will be opened to the outside world through EMAS platform. At present, EMAS has opened a r&d support platform, nine public cloud products and services, five scenarios and two proprietary cloud products and services.
EMAS divides the entire mobile application development into five functional domains: project domain, engineering domain, construction domain, operation domain and operation domain, and forms mobile middleware base solutions for these five functional domains.
In the solution part, Alibaba has opened source Altlas, an application container for Android, and Weex, a cross-platform UI development framework. Around these development frameworks, it will also provide corresponding commercial version solutions to help developers create and manage apps more easily. Provide full-link end-to-end mobile r&d solutions for mobile developers through the close cooperation of end + cloud. EMAS, an enterprise-level application development service for traditional enterprises, is provided in the private cloud segment. We hope to package the accumulation of the mobile Internet R&D system of Alibaba Group in the past 10 years, and copy our capabilities, experience, processes, mechanisms and methodologies with one click in the form of SaaS services. We hope to help more traditional enterprises quickly complete the transformation and upgrading of mobile services.
Based on the end-to-end full-link mobile application research and development system mentioned above, Alibaba also proposed a new mobile App research and development paradigm — Cloud Native App.
Traditional Cloud Native concept is mainly oriented to the backend application, use of container, micro service, continuous integration, continuous build, and the conversation of a set of Cloud architecture to build the application, its essence is a set of methodology of application building, how to make full use of the advantage of Cloud computing service model to the application of low cost, fast to build flexible, The same methodology applies to the mobile App scenario. For example, transparence and on-demand expansion of App operating environment are realized based on mobile Serverless architecture, r&d process is streamlined based on mobile App DevOps open on cloud to support efficient delivery of applications, and all infrastructure services are realized based on mobile middleware system on cloud with pay-per-quantity. Based on Weex/Atlas enabling application, the real realization of large App componentization and cross-platform ability. Such a set of Cloud Native App development paradigm can really help developers to reduce the technical risk of the business itself and invest their limited resources in the rapid growth of their business.
Next, we will share a series of core capabilities opened by Alibaba in the critical path of mobile App development, which are mainly divided into several key links: network, message and data, application quality and high availability, and enterprise-level mobile application development service EMAS.
(1) Network
The web is a critical building block for all mobile apps. Google has made corresponding statistical evaluation of the search system before. When the search system delay increases by 400 milliseconds, the search volume will decrease by 0.59%. Although this relative value seems relatively low, it is also a very large loss behind Google’s search volume. For every 400-millisecond increase in latency across Yahoo’s overall Web system, traffic dropped between 5% and 9%; For every 2-second increase in Bing latency, overall revenue fell by 4.3%; For Mozilla, every 2.2 seconds of latency increases downloads by 15.4%. Therefore, the network is not only closely related to the mobile terminal experience, but also directly determines the core business indicators of the product.
In the network link, Alibaba also has a very deep precipitation. First of all, from the very beginning of the network stage, the most advanced link is traffic scheduling and domain name resolution. Traditional DNS system exists many problems, such as the problem of domain name hijacking, and because of the network access scheduling precision of lower quality problems, and in the mobile scene itself, there are about 200 milliseconds delay domain name resolution, and the delay for the user’s network access itself will bring certain experience of loss. Traditional Web applications based on B/S architecture browsers are black boxes for developers, and it is difficult to optimize for network links. In the era of mobile Internet, mobile apps are basically constructed in the form of C/S architecture. Such a form and architecture feature means more room for customization and optimization for clients. In this context, HTTPDNS emerged as a substitute for the traditional DNS resolution path of the least controllable quality of service LocalDNS link.
HTTPDNS has the following features:
• Anti-hijacking, because there is often no commercial SLA guarantee for LocalDNS, and domain hijacking can be completely avoided in this way. At the same time, the deployment of BGP Anycast based on the whole network can realize the ability of the nearest access of the whole network clients, and guarantee the commercial service SLA through the disaster recovery of multiple computer rooms throughout the whole network. On the other hand, HTTPDNS and authoritative DNS are also directly connected via EDNS, which means precise scheduling based on client IP. In the traditional DNS system, the scheduling of the general authoritative DNS is based on the LocalDNS proxy node. Once the distribution of LocalDNS is not uniform, the accuracy of domain name resolution of CDN will be reduced.
• 0 delay resolution, because the mobile App is based on C/S architecture, SDK is provided on the end, and each DNS resolution delay can be asynchronously implemented in the background through features such as pre-resolution, intelligent cache and lazy loading. In this way, zero-delay resolution can be realized in a real sense. Thus, the latency of each network request is reduced.
• Resolution changes take effect in seconds. Because of the interaction between HTTPDNS and authoritative DNS, real-time changes of resolved domain names can be synchronized to the HTTPDNS side. In this way, the second effect of network changes cannot be implemented in traditional DNS system, because LocalDNS itself performs IP cache. Many times the IP cache does not follow the standard TTL protocol, resulting in a significant delay in changes taking effect across the network.
• The software definition and resolution capability enables users to customize traffic scheduling based on their own service requirements. This capability is of great use in scenarios such as A/B Test, version gray scale, and security traffic scheduling.
• Based on current measurements of network traffic data, HTTPDNS has become a very important domain name resolution and traffic scheduling infrastructure throughout the mobile Internet.
Domain name resolution is the main part of the network request. Compared with wired network, a very important feature of mobile network is the addition of a mobile link, and its overall packet loss rate, stability and delay are insufficient to wired network. This link is usually called Lastmile. How to solve the problem of Lastmile communication efficiency is also the core topic of mobile network optimization. For ordinary developers, the whole network link exists in the form of black box, so the space for network optimization by developers is very limited. If the optimization for mobile network is needed, experts should be hired to optimize the protocol. Therefore, the overall input and maintenance of resources and the cost of the threshold is relatively high. Based on this, Alibaba will also open its internal network optimization system — mobile acceleration service, hoping to help developers complete the overall three-dimensional optimization of App network from the three levels of terminal, management and cloud.
The traditional App network access link sends a request from the client to access the original site through the public network route. However, through mobile acceleration, the App sends a network request first to the nearest accelerator node throughout the whole network, and then returns to the original site through the accelerated network for fast route selection. This overall benefit comes from the following three aspects:
• In terms of “end”, mobile cloud will provide web hosting SDK, which can be used to build a two-end acceleration model through the coordination of hosting SDK and acceleration node. Traditional CDN is a typical single-ended acceleration model, and a very important advantage of the dual-ended acceleration model is that the link between the client and the acceleration node can be negotiated and realized due to the control of both ends. In such a two-terminal acceleration model, some defects of the traditional four-layer TCB protocol can be optimized and customized.
• In terms of “management”, mobile cloud has a large number of nearby ACCESS nodes throughout the whole network, with excellent quality in bandwidth, link and other aspects. At the same time, the traditional CDN is in the form of short connection, and the service request initiated each time may be released after the end. In the mobile acceleration scenario, a full-link long connection is realized between the client, the accelerator node and the original station, which can greatly reduce the redundant overhead of three-way handshake and security handshake in the network communication process. In addition, in terms of dynamic routing, there will be a large number of acceleration nodes in the whole network. Through these acceleration nodes, we can calculate in real time and intelligently what route should be taken from the nearest acceleration node to the user’s original station to optimize the overall delay and reduce the delay of each network access.
• In the aspect of “cloud”, the function of traditional CDN is the cache and distribution capability of static resources. The same mobile acceleration will inherit the cache and distribution capability of traditional CDN static resources. Meanwhile, dynamic resource optimization will be carried out for web-oriented resources such as HTML, JS and CSS to further compress the demand of network bandwidth on the link. Improve network access efficiency.
Compared with traditional CDN, mobile acceleration is CDN’s solution for mobile scenarios. In the context of the two-end acceleration model, protocol customization can be optimized for access links, and at the connection level, a true full-link long connection can be realized, which greatly reduces the redundant overhead such as secure handshake and three-way handshake. In the accelerated network, machine learning is introduced on the end to analyze whether to use accelerated links or public routes in the current environment of the customer through intelligent judgment. Based on the two-terminal acceleration model, optimization and customization can be implemented. The ENCRYPTION protocol of HTTPS can also be deeply customized, which can improve efficiency.
In addition to domain name resolution and network optimization, mobile network also has a lot of scene demands, such as network dial detection, network system monitoring, resource upload, remote call, network diagnosis, etc. Mobile network itself is a highly cohesive closed-loop scenario. App’s appeal to the network can be summarized by four key words: high-speed, stable, controllable and visible.
(2) Information and data
As the mobile Internet enters the second half, the dividend of population flow is gradually receding. How to achieve more accurate customer reach and retention has become the core operation index of each product. If you have paid attention to the site page of “Double 11”, you will find that Mobile shopping has achieved the ability of “thousands of faces”, and the data-based intelligent message push system has been running online for many years and achieved very good results. Now Alibaba will also open up the core technology behind these product capabilities to help us attract, activate, retain and convert customers.
For the business domain, Alibaba will open its message push system, which has experienced many years of “Double 11”. In terms of delivery, the message push channel shared by the whole Alibaba system is opened, and the communication solution based on multi-message push channel provided by the manufacturer’s partners is combined to ensure the overall delivery effect. In terms of delay, in-depth optimization and customization will be carried out for mobile network scenarios, and corresponding Sino-US high-speed channel special lines will be provided for IOS push scenarios to ensure the timely delivery of each task and network second-level response. In terms of traffic, the throughput rate of million-per-second message equipment means that it can timely respond to push services in the face of strong pulse computing scenarios such as “Double 11”.
In addition to the traditional PaaS layer push channel, it will further open the ability of composite push, and provide customers with more flexible solutions to reach end users based on the combination of mobile push and SMS push. In the model of compound push, customers are first reached through the message push of the application chain, and compensation is made through SMS push when the message push cannot reach customers. On the one hand, the high reach rate of SMS push can be used to ensure the reach effect of marketing tasks. On the other hand, the low cost of message push can be used to further reduce the cost behind marketing tasks.
Alibaba will further open within the group of intelligent push based on large data capacity, based on the personalized recommendation engine can build enterprise full user portraits, portraits based on user label, the end user location, terminal state information and the concrete content and so on each push intelligent device select the input source, effectively improve delivery accuracy, It can help customers achieve accurate and targeted marketing based on big data in a real sense.
(3) Application quality and high availability
The development of mobile Internet has accumulated tens of thousands of mobile terminal devices. The configuration combination of massive models, operating systems and resolutions has brought great challenges to the quality assurance of mobile applications themselves.
The traditional testing mode is based on manual, which can not fully cope with the exponential growth of the complexity of testing itself in terms of test coverage, test efficiency and Bug detection rate. Based on this background opened alibaba inside the real machine test service platform, mobile services, which include the real machine fit, function of automation, the cloud online debugging, recording, performance test and H5 test ability, hope to be able to from the public and proprietary cloud two channels to help with the demands of different customers to ensure quality delivery of mobile App.
Mobile Cloud also launched a one-click hot repair solution for online problems for mobile apps, Sophix, which provides an end-to-end hot repair solution for the slow release pace and long update cycle of Native Apps. Sophix can repair from three dimensions of code, resources and SO files, with very low access cost. There is no intrusion into the application, and a few lines of code can complete the overall access. Patch packages are updated by differential technology. From Patch generation, gray scale, online release and statistics, developers can achieve one-stop online fault emergency treatment solutions.
This system is similar to the above mobile network system, and it is also a highly cohesive closed-loop scenario, in which Alibaba has accumulated a lot of capabilities, such as data mining, analysis and sorting, terminal logs-oriented collection and analysis processing, etc.
(4) Mobile enterprise business
In addition to several scenarios of public cloud opening capabilities mentioned above, Alibaba will also open corresponding solutions for proprietary clouds, traditional enterprises and the wave of enterprise mobility.
Traditional enterprises will face a variety of r&d collaborative challenges in the process of business mobility, and there are many aspects and points of problems. In order to deal with these problems, Alibaba opened the enterprise-level mobile application R&D service EMAS. For traditional enterprise business development system is “Internet +” symbol of the Internet, simply in the aspect of resources through the cloud virtual machine to replace the traditional method of change of the nature of the physical machine not bring only realize the traditional system of internal development system of “Internet +” upgrade, can really bring traditional enterprise internal r&d efficiency of ascension. EMAS hopes to integrate Alibaba’s r&d system and accumulation of capabilities and experience in the past decade, and to help more traditional enterprises quickly build engineering mobile application R&D system, so as to achieve the transformation and upgrading goal of mobile enterprise business.
EMAS R&D support platform covers the whole process life cycle management from R&D management to continuous integration, automated testing, version management, gray release, market monitoring, system operation and maintenance, user operation and so on. It is an important carrier of this process, mechanism and methodology of mobile Internet precipitation. At the same time, with the basic service system of mobile middleware provided on cloud, it can provide developers with full-stack solutions for mobile application development in a real sense.
The figure above is the full EMAS capability delivery panorama. In addition to the traditional slave + cloud + data capability stack axis introduced just now, it will also open up alibaba’s accumulated soft capability and help developers to build a perfect r&d system integrating software and hardware.
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