How do I connect an iOS app to Google Cloud SQL?

Question

I had been building my database using Cloud Firestore because this was the easiest to implement. However, the querying capabilities of Firestore are insufficient for what I want to build, mostly due to the fact it can't handle querying inequalities on multiple fields. I need a SQL database.

I have an instance of Google Cloud SQL set up. The integration is far harder than Firebase where you just need to add a Cocoapods Pod. From my research it looks like I need to set up a Cloud SQL proxy, although if there is a simpler way of connecting it, I'd be glad to hear about it.

Essentially, I need a way for a client on the iOS to read and write to a SQL database. Cloud SQL seemed like the best, most scalable option (though I'd be open to hearing about alternatives that are easy to implement).

Answer 1

You probably don't want to configure your application to rely on connecting directly to an SQL database. Firestore is a highly scalable database that can handle thousands of connections - MySQL and Postgres do not scale as cleanly.

Instead, you should consider constructing a simple front end service that can be used to query the database and return formatted results. There are a variety of benefits to structuring this way, including being able to further optimize or distribute your queries. Google AppEngine and Google Cloud Functions can both be used to stand up such a service quickly, and both provide easy connection options to Cloud SQL.