PubNub explained

PubNub
Type:	Private
Founder:	Stephen Blum Todd Greene
Location City:	San Francisco, California
Location Country:	U.S.
Foundation:	2010
Area Served:	Worldwide
Industry:	Internet
Products:	PubNub Realtime Communication Platform, PubNub Functions,^[1] PubNub Chat^[2]
Url:	www.pubnub.com

PubNub is a real-time communication platform and infrastructure-as-a-service company based in San Francisco, California. The company makes products for software and hardware developers to build real-time web, mobile, and Internet of Things^[3] (IoT) applications.

PubNub's primary product is a real-time publish-subscribe messaging API built on their global data stream network. The network is made up of a replicated network of 15 data centers located in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. The network currently serves 330 million devices and streams a trillion messages per month.

History

PubNub was founded in 2010 by Stephen Blum and Todd Greene. The platform raised $4.5 million in Series A funding from Relay Ventures and TiE Angels in March 2012.^[4] They received their $11 million Series B round of funding in September 2013 from Scale Venture Partners, Relay Ventures and TiE Angels.^[5] In July 2015, PubNub received its $20 million Series C round of funding led by Sapphire Ventures.^[6] In September 2016, PubNub closed a $6 million venture round led by Cisco Investments and Ericsson.^[7] In April 2019, PubNub received its $23 million Series D round of funding, adding Hewlett Packard Enterprise to the list of investors.^[8]

Technology

PubNub utilizes a publish-subscribe^[9] model for real-time data streaming and device signaling and supports all of the capabilities of WebSockets, Socket.IO, SignalR, WebRTC Data Channel and other streaming protocols. PubNub provides SDKs for over 70 different programming languages and environments including JavaScript, iOS, and Android, as well as JavaScript frameworks such as AngularJS, Ember.js, and Backbone.js. PubNub also provides client libraries for board platforms including Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Texas Instruments, and Microchip.

• Functions a set of customizable microservices that give developers a way to add code and deploy features for real-time apps.
• Publish/Subscribe Messaging provides real-time data streaming^[10] and device signaling, and includes built-in AES encryption and optional TLS/SSL encryption. The atomic components that make up a data stream are API Keys, Messages, and Channels. This feature handles channels in a lightweight manner, allowing software developers to create an unlimited number of channels for any set of API keys without first declaring the channel.
• Online Presence Detection provides tracking of online and offline status of users and devices in real-time. Presence events are triggered when a connected device subscribes or unsubscribes from a channel, or times out. The Presence API also includes a “state” feature allowing for the persistent tracking of any name–value pair a software developer specifies, such as a “typing” event indicator in a basic chat application.
• Access Management provides fine grain read and write access control^[11] on a per user, device, or channel basis. This adds an extra layer of security and enables the syndication of streams by providing authorization to individual users, as well as grant/revoke permissions at the channel or key level.
• Data Stream Controller multiplexes individual data streams as a single persistent connection, and it centralizes control of the creation and modification of groups of data channels at the server level.
• Storage & Playback stores messages as they are published to a data channel, and retrieves them from high-availability storage clusters at a later time. Data streams can also be replayed as they were broadcast in real-time.
• Mobile Push Notifications bridges native Pub/Sub Messaging API publishing with third-party push notification services including Google Android GCM, Apple iOS APNS, and Microsoft Windows Phone MSNP. The developing, configuring, and maintaining of server side components for third-party providers is provided by the PubNub API.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Introducing Functions: Serverless Computation at Scale. September 12, 2016. July 11, 2018. PubNub.
2. Web site: Announcing PubNub Chat: Our Flexible Chat SDK for Powerful In-App Chat. November 13, 2019. May 22, 2020. PubNub.
3. Web site: Companies See Market in Managing 'Internet of Things'. Don. Clark. September 15, 2015. The Wall Street Journal.
4. Web site: PubNub raises $4.5M to bring real-time messaging to apps. March 20, 2012. October 9, 2015. Gigaom. Ryan. Lawler.
5. Web site: Scale Venture Partners Invests $11 Million in PubNub Series B. September 17, 2013. October 9, 2015. All Things Digital. Arik. Hesseldahl.
6. Web site: OTT Data Streamer PubNub Lands $20M in VC Funding. Chris. Preimesberger. July 1, 2015. eWeek.
7. Web site: Cisco Investments, Ericsson Invest $6 Million in PubNub to Help Shape The Future of Networking. PubNub. PubNub. September 12, 2016. PubNub.
8. Web site: PubNub nabs $23M as its IaaS network hits 1.3T messages sent each month. April 9, 2019. Ingrid. Lunden. TechCrunch.
9. Web site: PubNub offers publish/subscribe messaging as a service and supports real-time, global messaging for cloud and mobile apps. Ross. Mason. November 14, 2011. ReadWrite.
10. Web site: Sportlobster uses PubNub network for data streaming in real time. May 5, 2015. October 22, 2015. Computer Weekly. Karl. Flinders.
11. Web site: Real-Time App Development Platform PubNub Introduces Serverless Access Control. October 23, 2013. October 22, 2015. ProgrammableWeb. Amy. Castor.