I am a little confused about this migration path, as described in a recent aws blog post, and its aftermath:
It seems like quite a bit of trouble to have to rely on all my users to update in a timely fashion so that GCMSenderIDs can be attached to my existing parse data along with modified/valid device tokens.
Also, what happens to new installations after the migration is complete? In the guide it says no changes need to be made to client side code, but doesn't this require that the SNS sdk is installed so that new installations can be added to the client list?
Considering all this, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to simply forget about the old parse data and just push a client/app update that works solely with SNS and reregister all the devices that way? Why go through all the trouble to integrate with Parse when we are getting rid of it anyways?
AllTheTime,
Your existing Android user push tokens on Parse.com will no longer be valid after January 28, 2017 as Parse owns the API Server Key associated with the Sender ID that was granted the token. If you wish to reach those existing users via Push Notifications after January, you must update the existing Parse.com client app with your own Sender ID and have the app generate a new registration Id (token) associated with your Sender ID. There is no other way for you to convert the existing tokens over to SNS or any another 3rd party.
The SNS SDK is not required for the migration but it would make sense to integrate the SNS SDK when you update the app to retrieve new tokens using your Sender ID. At the time of token registration, the app can update the Parse.com database with the newly issued token AND also create a new Platform Endpoint with SNS.
As for post Parse Push migration and handling the new app installations, my suggestion is to build an after-save “webhook” on the _Installation class on Parse.com. The “webhook” would trigger any http endpoint when a row is created or updated in the _Installation class. The hook could trigger an API Gateway http endpoint that takes the newly generated or updated token and creates a new SNS platform endpoint. At this point, if you haven’t fully migrated from Parse.com, you can either publish to those tokens via Parse.com or SNS. By the time Jan 28, 2017 rolls around, nearly all your existing users would have launched the updated app and generated a new token or they no longer use your app.
Starting over with just SNS is another option but if you need to reach any of the users who have not updated the app then you would need to continue sending push notifications through Parse.com for those legacy users who have not updated the app AND you would then continue to send push notifications via SNS to those new app installs.
I hope this clarifies the migration for you.
Check out my other SO post regarding the Parse.com GCM Sender ID:
How to migrate off Parse to different SENDER_ID
-Dennis
