6 proven tips to rapidly scale your Real-Time chat app
A scalable application is the need of the hour for every business out there.
Looking back at the Facebook outage that happened on October 4, 2021 evokes memories of anxiety over again.
Though it happened for just a few hours, it would have cost the brands relying on them a huge amount. And since these were agile applications, they bounced back sooner than ever.
On those lines, how scalable is your communication app and how soon can it bounce back post a failure?
This relevant example signifies the need for creating a scalable application.
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Understanding app scalability:
The key metric, agility evaluates the strength of an application to withstand growth. Given the digital spree, it is obvious that applications experience a spike in requests, and even hit peak load volume anytime.
On top of that, enabling product expansion, UI and code enhancements etc are few of the real-time challenges of brands. Well, realizing these without compromising cost, time, effort and most importantly performance is the big deal here.
This is where agility comes into play.
An agile system effortlessly handles increasing demand and remains unaffected by it.
In simpler terms, better performance yields better results and for this very reason it is extremely crucial for apps today.
Remarkable facets of a scalable communication app:
It is the era of communication and instant messaging apps are ruling over the internet. Just like every other application, these too should be highly scalable to surpass the increasing business demand.
Typically, an extensible chat app should tick all the below boxes for delivering a seamless UX.
- Improve page speed and reduce load time, bugs
- Ensures ease of management and implementation of new changes
- Guarantees high performance without affecting budget and time factors
- Offer fool-proof recovery options
- Rolls out smooth app upgrades
- Aids extension of the product life cycle
- Is available all the time
In order to build a scalable real-time communication app, there are certain prerequisites to be considered along the way.
1. Invest in a scalable architecture:
This fine aspect of app development that should be considered right from start to finish. Primarily, how the app is scaled depends solely on the app development team.
Vertical scaling (scaling up) upgrades the existing server components for faster processing of apps. Meanwhile horizontal scaling (scaling out) calls for addition of new servers to meet the demands. Primarily, choose a suitable hardware framework that harnesses agility and a load balancing software for fair load distribution.
Driven by microservices architecture, these apps promote flexibility with their modular design and technology independent features. Besides, chat apps can also utilize cloud storage options as it offers unlimited storage at a reasonable pricing.
2. Deliver a flexible user experience:
Crafting a unique user experience is the key to getting conversations started, especially in a communication platform. A simple and easy interface goes a long way in creating and nurturing meaningful conversations across the board.
By means of timely UI enhancements, businesses can minimize user interactions and support peak load without impacting usability.
3. Execute realistic load tests:
It is vital to perform several rounds of simulated load testing before deployment to assess the app performance. By and large, a practical load test gives a fair idea on the following metrics:
- Maximum number of users in a session
- High load bearing capability
- Recovery options post app failure
Recreate a simulated app environment and perform rigorous tests to make your app glitch-free.
4. Evaluate app throughout:
Post deployment phase is equally important as the ideation and the design phase. If real-time challenges that creep in go unnoticed, it could cost a fortune for the company.
Communication being the core of all industries, even a minor glitch could affect the reputation of brands. Bearing this in mind, conducting periodic reviews will help address the issues and roll out updates accordingly.
5. Sign up for throughput-based planning :
Throughput is simply a measure of efficiency of a system over time. In terms of an application, throughput denotes the volume of requests received to the number of users visited. It is obvious that this number is dynamic and might increase anytime in the future.
Ergo, strategic planning aids apps the ability to scale all bottlenecks and ace the future needs in throughput.
6. Employ Unified Communication strategy:
Any in-app chat suite becomes incomplete without unified communication. The strategy unifies all real-time efforts(chat, audio, video) and non real-time efforts (email, voicemail) for seamless operation.
With a dedicated native chat SDK setup, apps can be easily scaled for extensive operation and collaboration.
Conclusion:
Scalability is not just an alternative but an integral part of apps these days. Adopting these best practices can help businesses integrate agility and augment business productivity all along. If this seems to be a lot, hand it over to us and experience the power of CONTUS MirrorFly.
With proven industry expertise, our conversational suite has enabled successful implementation of in-app communication for several giants across industries.
Now, let us help scale your real-time communication app and your business in no time.
Saravanan, a product marketing enthusiast, channels his passion into creating impactful strategies and approaches that redefine the modern messaging experience for users. His wholehearted exploration of in-app communication reflects his commitment to the field.