Answers below in red: 2010/5/15 Paweł Gronkiewicz <[email protected]>
> Hello everyone :) > > My first post and it will be quite big. I spend last week looking at > Google App Engine, so my head is full of questions now. There is > surely a lot of reading ahead, but I think that best way to get it > sorted will be by asking here. I'd like to get some hints and > directions. And I'd like to know if all that stuff is worth looking > into... > > Anyway, my project is browser-based game. The goal is to go through > pages/tabs and modify database values [also known as building, > recruiting, producing, spellcasting, attacking...]. So it's mostly > about constant access to data + social aspects [forum, chat, etc]. All > interaction between accounts occurs only once every 24h [attacks, > spells etc; except some minor stuff [target validations, war > declarations etc]. > > There were some changes in programming languages etc, final decision > was to go with Java [wicket + hibernate + spring + jboss probably], > but a friend pointed me to Google App Engine. So my main question is, > would it be the right direction? There are some questions/thoughts > that come: > > 1. Free hosting sounds great - limits sound good enough for beta- > testing purposes. Prices later seem competitive. And you don't have to > worry about where you host, while serving customers from the whole > world. > > 2. You can't get more reliable partner than google really. > Your right :) its very stable and can handle loads. > > 3. But what are drawbacks? Can you later host your application > somewhere else without redoing most of it? [database access etc mostly > comes to mind] > You cant host your application elsewhere because its written ontop of the app engine, you can use the dev server you get with your python sdk to host it elsewhere but its highly unrecommanded. you can access your datastore database remotely by using /remote_api or writing your own proprietary api to access your data remotely. > > 4. Does application identifier matter at all? It seems like everyone > can claim anything. I guess it's just to identify your app and people > won't see it? [if you link your domain] > Application identifier matters if you plan on hosting your app on the . appspot.com domain, i assume you want your own domain. so no its doesnt really matter. > > 5. I don't understand "Authentication Options " when creating app. > What does it mean? I don't want anyone else aaccessing my app and > source code. But I want to have my own user database for my app - not > openID or google accounts [and people could be unhappy about having to > use one of these just to play the game]. And I want few domains to > link to just one app. > Noone can access your database, code or anything else. but its all up to you. i recommand using the google app engine django patch which lets you run webapps using django python framework ontop of app engine and datastore. you can then use alot of pre-written code (middleware) to allow users to access your app using openid,google,facebook,twitter etc and have a dedicated datastore user base. > > 6. I have naked domain, just parked where I got it. How can I link it > to google, so my app can be there? As it's just parked I cannot put > html there. And I don't have CNET record access. > if you dont have CNAME records you can access you cant point your domain. if your domain is parked on godaddy for example they got 'TotalDNS' that you can park your domain on their DNS servers and they allow you to add CNAME records freely. remember you cannot host naked domain. only subdomain. i.e http://beta.mydomain.com and not http://mydomain.com etc... > > 7. Scalability sounds cool, but can I maintain multiple game servers > as one app? I don't want all users to play on one. > the term servers is thrown around... :P dont think of servers anymore. there arent any. its google app engine voodoo. just like you dont have ftp access to your files is because there is no specific machine that hosts your code. its spread around. you can just upload different .appspot applications for different servers. you can also host different apps under django framework. > > 8. Is there any way to use SMS services [liek the google one that > sends you activation code] in our app? It'd be nice to be able to send > notification [or account verification] this way. > there are alot of sms services out there that lets you send sms via their servers with simple HTTP request. i dont think google has api for their sms services. > > 9. Are there any tools to support payments from customers? Anything > that I could just deploy, modify and be able to accept money securely? > I recommend using google's Payment service called 'checkout'. they let you even add a small javascript code api that added a fully blown shopping cart. similare to paypal but easier. > > 10. How do data backups work? I'd like to be able to back up my entire > database probably every 24h or some things even more often. It would > probably involve exceeding some quotas really fast? > You dont have to worry about backups just like you dont backup your gmail. but if you do want to backup content you can use the /bulk_uploader.py tool (maybe i got the name wrong) it lets you use the /remote_api for your datastore to dump all your database on your hard drive. > > 11. If Google gets banned in any country [well, it can happen :P], > will people from that country be still able to use my app [I guess > answer would be no]? > Google bans countries, countries dont ban google. just like chuck norris. > > That would be mostly it for now. I hope there is someone patient > enough to answer my questions :) And I really hope I did not ask too > much about what's already answered somewhere else. Just brutal links > with "RTFM" will be accepted as answers too :P > > Paul > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Google App Engine" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<google-appengine%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.
