The document discusses Amazon SNS Mobile Push, a managed service for sending push notifications to mobile devices at scale. It provides an overview of push notifications and the challenges of managing them directly. Amazon SNS Mobile Push handles all integration with platform push services and token management, allowing developers to easily send push notifications across all major platforms. The summary describes how developers can get started with Amazon SNS Mobile Push by registering apps and devices, then sending notifications via API or console.

1. Amazon SNS Mobile Push Deep Dive
Jinesh Varia
10/10/2014

2. Authenticate users
Manage users and
identity providers
Authorize access
Securely access
cloud resources
Sync user prefs
across devices
Analyze User Behavior
Store and share media
Synchronize data
Deliver media
Send push notifications
Store shared data
Track active users,
engagement
Track Retention Stream real-time data
Manage funnels,
Campaign performances
Store user-generated photos
Media and share them
Automatically detect mobile devices
Deliver content quickly globally
Bring users back to your app by sending
messages reliably
Store and query fast NoSQL data
across users and devices
Collect real-time clickstream logs
and take actions quickly
Your
Mobile
App

3. Introducing AWS Mobile Services
Amazon Cognito Amazon Mobile Analytics Amazon SNS Mobile Push
Kinesis Connector DynamoDB Connector S3 Connector SQS ConnectorSES Connector
AWS Global Infrastructure (10 Regions, Availability Zones, 51 Edge Locations)
Mobile Optimized
Services
Mobile Optimized
Connectors
Core Building Block
Services
Your Mobile App, Game or Device App
AWS Mobile SDK, API Endpoints, Management Console
Compute Storage Networking Analytics Databases
Integrated SDK

4. Cross-platform, Optimized for Mobile
User identity &
data synchronization
service
Fast cross-platform
Analytics & reporting
Service
Amazon Cognito Amazon Mobile Analytics Amazon SNS Mobile Push
Kinesis Connector DynamoDB Connector S3 Connector SQS ConnectorSES Connector
Store any NoSQL
data and also map
mobile OS specific
objects to
DynamoDB tables
Powerful Cross-platform
Push notification service
Recorder that can
handle intermittent
network connection
Easily upload,
download to S3 and
also pause,
resume, and cancel
these operations
Send email
reliably from
device
Access
distributed
buffering and
queuing service

5. Fully Integrated AWS Mobile SDK
• Common authentication mechanism across
all services
• Automatically handle intermittent network
connections
• Cross-platform Support: Android, iOS, Fire
OS
• Native SDKs optimized for Mobile OS, for
example, uses the local offline caching
architecture
• Reduced memory footprint; Pick and choose
the service jars you need

6. Authenticate users
Manage users and
identity providers
Authorize access
Securely access
cloud resources
Sync user prefs
across devices
Analyze User Behavior
Store and share media
Synchronize data
Deliver media
Send push notifications
Store shared data
Track active users,
engagement
Track Retention Stream real-time data
Manage funnels,
Campaign performances
Store user-generated photos
Media and share them
Automatically detect mobile devices
Deliver content quickly globally
Bring users back to your app by sending
messages reliably
Store and query fast NoSQL data
across users and devices
Collect real-time clickstream logs
and take actions quickly
Your
Mobile
App

7. Authenticate users
Amazon Cognito
(Identity Broker)
Authorize access
AWS Identity and
Access Management
Analyze User Behavior
Store and share media
Synchronize data
AWS Mobile SDK
Amazon Mobile
Analytics
Deliver media
Amazon Cognito
(Sync)
Amazon S3
Transfer Manager
Amazon CloudFront
(Device Detection)
Store shared data
Amazon DynamoDB
(Object Mapper)
Stream real-time data
Amazon Kinesis
(Recorder)
Track Retention
Amazon Mobile
Analytics
Send push notifications
Amazon SNS
Mobile Push
Your
Mobile
App

8. Amazon SNS Mobile Push
“managed, scalable, cross-platform push intermediary service”
Highly Scalable
Send one identical
messages to multiple
providers at once
Single API for Cross-
Platform Notifications
Gateways
Broadcast
Apple, Google Amazon,
Windows, Baidu CP all
fully integrated
Scales from zero to
billions of notifications a
day within a few days
iOS

9. 65% of mobile apps are abandoned
within 90 days.
http://blog.flurry.com/bid/90743/App-Engagement-The-Matrix-Reloaded

10. “…understanding and improving user
engagement is the new currency of doing
business in the new digital world.”
–Peter Farago, Flurry.com
http://blog.flurry.com/bid/90743/App-Engagement-The-Matrix-Reloaded

11. Mobile push notifications engage customers when your app
is not currently active.

12. Mobile push notifications engage customers when your app
is not currently active.
• Right message
• Right user
• Right time

13. Discussion Topics
• Engaging Your Users with Push Notifications
• Quick Intro to Mobile Push and Simple Notification Service (SNS)
• Getting Started with SNS

14. Mobile push notifications engage customers when your app
is not currently active.
• Users opt-in to receive them
• Delivered to a specific app
on a specific device
• Short messages: read, ignore, or
acknowledge to launch the app

15. Push notifications drive user engagement
“Some of us have very busy lives and can’t
be checking the game 24/7. It would be great
to get a notification when a challenge starts.”
- Plumbee gaming customer

16. Some Use Cases
Broadcast Direct Closed Loop
Identical messages to
many at once
Unique messages to
individual customers
Targeted and optimized
with analytics

17. Some Use Cases
Broadcast Direct Closed Loop
Identical messages to
many at once
Unique messages to
individual customers
Targeted and optimized
with analytics

18. Broadcast Push Notification Use Cases
• New features/content/games
• Promotion start/ends/redemption
• Active players (active in 7 days)
• Newly inactive players
• Segmentation (geo, spend, others..)

19. Broadcast Push Notification Use Cases
• “New episode available now!”
• “Halloween challenge starts today.”
• “Keep the streak going.”
• “Smokey the bear misses you!”
• “New Jetpack, on sale today!”

20. Some Use Cases
Broadcast Closed Loop
Identical messages to
many at once
Targeted and optimized
with analytics
Direct
Unique messages to
individual customers

21. Direct Push Notification Use Cases
• Messaging
• Turn-based activities
• Events
• User lifecycle
• Administrative

22. Direct Push Notification Use Cases
• “Jon invited you to a game.”
• “It’s your turn to play.”
• “You now have full lives.”
• “Welcome to the game!”
• “Your subscription is ending.”

23. Some Use Cases
Broadcast
Identical messages to
many at once
Direct
Unique messages to
individual customers
Closed Loop
Targeted and optimized
with analytics

24. Closed Loop Push Notification Use Cases
• Broadcast push notifications
• Direct push notifications

25. Closed Loop Push Notification Use Cases
• Different messages
• Different frequencies
• Different segments
• Different times of day
• Different points in the lifecycle

26. Some Use Cases
Broadcast Direct Closed Loop
Identical messages to
many at once
Unique messages to
individual customers
Targeted and optimized
with analytics

27. Consider push notifications as calls-to-action: what
messages will most effectively reengage your customers?

29. Mirrorball Slots - Mobile

30. Mirrorball Slots - Challenges

31. Mirrorball Slots - Challenges
Push 1:
Initial Offer
Push 2:
Final Offer
Push 3:
Offer Redemption

32. Push notifications drive user engagement
Real User Engagement Comparison
Initial Offer
Final Offer
Offer Redemption Day
Without Push With Push

33. Discussion Topics
• Engaging Your Users with Push Notifications
• Quick Intro to Mobile Push and Simple Notification Service (SNS)
• Getting Started with SNS

34. Your cloud application directs mobile push notifications to
a specific app on a specific device
Cloud App Mobile Apps

35. Notifications are delivered via platform-specific push
services, which keep connections with their devices.
Platform
Service
Cloud App Mobile Apps

36. Developers manage tokens for each device, and must
proactively swap or disable them based on feedback.
Platform
Service
Token Registration
Token
Feedback

37. Each platform-specific push service works differently.
Apple APNS
Google GCM
Amazon ADM
• Different APIs
• Different Features
• Different Feedback

38. Push notifications get even more complex as you scale to
support millions of devices.
Cloud App
Platform Services Mobile Apps

39. Developers build custom intermediaries to abstract platform-specific
APIs and manage tokens for millions of apps.
Push Intermediary Mobile Apps

40. Developers build custom intermediaries to abstract platform-specific
APIs and manage tokens for millions of apps.
 Abstraction so your app
can engage users on
any platform
 Manage tokens to
ensure messages are
delivered reliably
 Operational complexity
 Scalability takes work
 Cost – even though the
platform services
themselves are free

41. Amazon SNS Mobile Push is a managed, scalable, cross-platform
push intermediary service.
Amazon SNS
Cross-platform
Mobile Push
Apple APNS
Google GCM
Baidu CP
Amazon ADM
Windows WNS and
MPNS
Industry’s First!
New!
iOS
Apple iPhones and iPads
Android Phones and Tablets
Android Phones and Tablets in China
Kindle Fire Devices
Windows Desktop and Windows Phone
Devices

42. SNS offers easy scalability, so you can just start sending
more messages as your app achieves scale.
• Go from a few messages to hundreds of millions
• Go from a few devices to hundreds of millions
...without provisioning, configuring or managing
...without sacrificing reliable, durable delivery
New features:
• Time to Live (TTL)
• Message Attributes
• Large Topics
• iOS8

43. You can get started for free.
1 Million Free per Month
• 1 million publishes + 1 million mobile push notifications
$1.00 per Million Thereafter
• $0.50 per million publishes + $0.50 per million mobile push deliveries
• When you broadcast with SNS Topics, your effective price can be lower

44. Discussion Topics
• Engaging Your Users with Push Notifications
• Quick Intro to Mobile Push and Simple Notification Service (SNS)
• Getting Started with SNS

45. SNS publishes notifications on your behalf using the
credentials you obtain from each push service.
Apple APNS
Google GCM
Amazon ADM
Amazon SNS
Mobile Push

46. SNS encapsulates each device token inside an Amazon
Resource Name (ARN) endpoint.
Apple APNS
Google GCM
Amazon ADM
Amazon SNS
Mobile Push
ARN 1
Token A
ARN 2
Token B
ARN 3
Token C

47. Once you register a device with SNS, SNS proactively consumes
feedback about the corresponding token from the push service.
Amazon SNS
Mobile Push
Token
Feedback
Token
Registration
Cloud App
You can access
the underlying
tokens and
feedback, but you
don’t have to do
so in order to use
SNS.

48. ARN endpoints remain stable, even if the underlying token
is swapped or disabled.
Apple APNS
Google GCM
Amazon ADM
Amazon SNS
Mobile Push
ARN 1
Token A
ARN 2
Token X
Token B
ARN 3
Token Y
Token C

49. ARN endpoints behave the same no matter which mobile
platform they address.
Amazon SNS
Mobile Push
ARN 1
Token A
ARN 2
Token B
ARN 3
Token C

50. You can publish unique messages to individual devices, or
broadcast identical messages to many devices at once.
Direct Publishing Broadcast with SNS Topics
Publish
Publish
Publish
Publish

51. Grouping users by SNS Topic
Geography Activity Product
US – West Coast Daily Actives Flapping Bird Rio
Interest Tier Segment
49ers Premium Top 100 Players

52. SNS can reformat your message for each mobile platform,
or you can specify platform-specific payloads.
Publish Once, Deliver Anywhere Specify Platform-Specific Payloads
Apple
Kindle
Fire
Kindle
Fire
Google
Publish
Apple
Kindle
Fire
Kindle
Fire
Google
Publish

53. So let’s get started.

54. Step 1: Write your mobile app
• Use the mobile app platform’s
push notification libraries as you
normally would.

55. Step 2: Obtain Application Prerequisites
• APNs:
• Apple Push Notification service SSL certificate
• Application Private Key
• GCM:
• API Key (Sender Auth Token)
• ADM:
• Client ID
• Client secret

56. Step 3: Register Your Mobile App with AWS
Amazon SNS
Mobile Push

57. Step 4: Obtain a Token/Registration ID from the device
• APNs:
• Device Token
• GCM:
• Registration ID
• ADM:
• Registration ID
Cloud
App
<e960d9b1…de43f6c0>

58. Step 5: Add Token/Registration ID to Amazon SNS
• For existing devices
• Use the console for .csv import
• Or use CreatePlatformEndpoint API
• For future devices
• Use a proxy server and the
CreatePlatformEndpoint API
• Or use the AWS token vending service and
let devices register themselves
• Receive an ARN back
Amazon SNS
Mobile Push
<e960d9b1…de43f6c0>
Cloud
App
arn:aws:sns:eu-west-1:12…1f

59. private String getArnForDeviceEndpoint(
String platformApplicationArn,
String deviceToken) {
CreatePlatformEndpointRequest request =
new CreatePlatformEndpointRequest()
.withPlatformApplicationArn(platformApplicationArn)
.withToken(deviceToken);
CreatePlatformEndpointResult result =
snsClient.createPlatformEndpoint(request);
return result.getEndpointArn();
}
Device Registration – Code example

60. Step 6a: Send Push Notifications via the Console
Hello world!

61. Step 6b: Send Push Notifications via the API
MyMac:~ glez$ python
Python 2.7.2 (default, Oct 11 2012, 20:14:37)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple Clang 4.0 (tags/Apple/clang-418.0.60)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import boto
>>> import boto.sns
>>> boto.sns.connect_to_region("eu-west-1").publish(
... message="Hello world!",
... target_arn="arn:aws:sns:eu-west-
1:979463966312:endpoint/APNS_SANDBOX/Push2reInvent/fc1234a1-67ef-4f62-b31a-ac320bf7631f")
{u'PublishResponse': {u'PublishResult': {u'MessageId': u'1893fa9d-7478-5137-be1d-b06928d999d0'},
u'ResponseMetadata': {u'RequestId': u'c3c26267-92af-50b3-b529-
2893ce0e4854'}}}
>>>

62. Step 7: Receive and Close the Loop

63. Amazon SNS
Mobile Push
Quick Review:
• Cross-platform push to
Apple, Google, Amazon, Windows and Baidu
• 1m free per month, and $1.00 per million thereafter
• Seamless scalability with durable, reliable deliveries
• Easy token management
For More Information:
• SNS Detail Page and Docs: http://amzn.to/179ee7r
• Getting Started + Sample Apps: http://amzn.to/15rs1DV
• Email: aws-sns-mobile-push@amazon.com

64. Thank You!
Jinesh Varia, Stefano Buliani
@jinman, @sapessi

65. Appendix: Server side Mobile Push

66. Let’s Build This System
Dev
Apple iPhone
iOS SDK
with XCode
PHP Push Server
App with web UI
Elastic Beanstalk
Container
Notification
Mac
Amazon SNS
Google
AWS Cloud
Android
Notification

67. 1) Register Developer, Device & App Identities with Apple
Dev
Apple iPhone
Mac

68. 2) Load Client App on iPhone with XCode
Dev
iPhone
iOS SDK
with XCode
Mac

69. 3) Register Device Apps and Endpoints in SNS
Dev
iPhone
Mac
Amazon SNS
AWS Cloud
Android

70. 4) Deploy Push Server Application in Elastic Beanstalk
Dev
PHP Push Server
App with web UI
Elastic Beanstalk
Container
Mac
AWS Cloud

71. 5) Server Discovers Registered SNS Device Apps and Endpoints
Dev
Apple iPhone
PHP Push Server
App with web UI
Elastic Beanstalk
Container
Mac
Amazon SNS
Google
AWS Cloud
Android

72. 6) Send Notifications from Server UI via Google & Apple
Dev
Apple iPhone
PHP Push Server
App with web UI
Elastic Beanstalk
Container
Notification
Mac
Amazon SNS
Google
AWS Cloud
Android
Notification