Uploading media to AWS from Parse

Question

I built an API with Node that allows users to upload data and media (photo or video). I already have everything set up with AWS to store the media and covert it from an mp4 to something streamable.

After I built a lot of the API, I decided that it would be best to just use parse.

Since I obviously don't want to store media files with parse, is there a way to store data about the media from the normal POST request (location, description, tags, user_id, created_date....) in Parse, but have Parse send the media file off to AWS, and then also tell AWS to kick off an Elastic Transcoder job?

Answer 1

You can use Parse Cloud Code Webhooks to achieve this. Below are a few related posts for high-level description and an available demo which connects with Heroku, but it should be similar to connect with AWS -- Heroku is hosted on AWS afterall :)

Introducing Cloud Code Webhooks

With this, you can now specify any URL to receive a POST in response to triggers like beforeSave and afterSave on objects, as well as when a Cloud Function is called. You now have the freedom to write code in whatever language you want. As long as you have a server running it, your Cloud Code can integrate with it.

Parse with Heroku

One powerful feature of Parse is Webhooks, which lets you connect your Parse app to any server on the web to use a custom server environment rather than Parse’s hosted Cloud Code. We’re always looking for ways to make Parse easier to use, and recently, we released Node.js middleware to make it easier to connect your Parse app to a Node.js server.

Today we’re excited to announce that we’re partnering with Heroku to make it even easier to connect your Parse app to Node.js code. If you like Parse’s Cloud Code but wish you had a full Node.js environment, this is a great solution. We’ve created a smooth experience for you to run code on either Heroku or the Parse Cloud and we’re very excited about the opportunities this combination has to offer.