brainCloud provides very robust and specialized APIs for dealing with cloud data.
In regard to User (Player) data, brainCloud provides the following mechanisms:
- User [Player] Statistics – advanced API for managing numeric stats on the server. Statistics are defined ahead-of-time on the server and are concurrency-safe. User statistics are a key building block for brainCloud’s Gamification features, and therefore developers are encouraged to take advantage of the facility where appropriate
- User Entities – entities are used to store more complex (i.e. json) objects on the server. The brainCloud API has been optimized to allow retrieval of all entities via a single read operation, with support for a continuous stream of incremental updates.
- User Attributes – brainCloud also provides support for free-form attributes (key+value pairs). Attributes are useful for simple, less rigid data – and can be used to simplify the creation of complex user segments (for promotions targeting)
Note – brainCloud’s Gamification feature provides direct support for player XP, player XP level, achievements, etc – so you do not need to model these concepts directly in your cloud data.
brainCloud also provides support for Global data elements:
- Global Statistics – similar to user statistics, but with global scope – global statistics are useful for managing key metrics across your player population
- Global Entities – like User Entities, except global in scope. Global Entities support ACL for permissions. Global Entities can also be written with a TTL (time to live) attribute so that they automatically delete themselves after a given time period.
- Global Properties – finally, brainCloud supports Global Properties (key+value pairs) which are very handy as global tuning parameters for your app or game (especially since they’re directly editable via the design portal).
Note that brainCloud’s Design Portal provides support for viewing (and in some cases editing) all User and Global data.
For a more detailed overview of brainCloud’s Cloud Data features, see the introductory section of the Cloud Data APIs.