On Measuring Cloud-Based Push Services

The push services provide an incredibly efficient and reliable way of sending information to mobile device users. However, very little is known about how push service providers implement their services. This understanding is valuable as a guideline for building well-performing mobile applications. In this paper, the authors propose a methodology to assess push services and conduct the first systematic study on evaluating and comparing 4 popular push services (i.e., GCM, Gexin, JPush, and ZYPush). They dissect the protocols used by these services and discuss the implications. Moreover, they measure and compare their performances, including server distribution, message delay, heartbeat frequency, data compression and traffic consumption. The experimental results show that GCM outperforms others and JPush is one of the best providers in China. The authors' methodology and results are useful as both benchmark and guideline for mobile applications development.