Following Facebook’s decision to wind down its Parse apps development platform, BuddyPlatform – a data aggregation and management platform for the Internet of Things – is taking matters into its own hands.

It has announced it is beta testing “Parse Server by Buddy”, a “fully hosted, fully managed, auto-scaling implementation of the Parse Server” with the assistance of the Parse team at Facebook.

The beta program is limited in scope, and it is expected that apps with active users totalling in excess of 350,000 will join the platform by the end of the first week.

Buddy hopes the platform will be live and fully operational prior to the 28 April cut-off date provided by Facebook.

Parse is a smartphone data platform which powers over one million mobile apps, and became a popular ‘mobile backend as a service’ (mBaaS) before being acquired by Facebook in 2013 for a reported $85 million.

“We were proud to have been chosen by developers to power integral components of some of the world’s top mobile and device applications,” said Kevin Lacker, CTO at Parse. “However, as we shift our focus, we’re thrilled to see companies like Buddy pick up the mantle and ensure the longevity of the Parse platform.”

Buddy said in a blog post it believes developers were attracted to Parse because they didn’t want to manage backend services and it wants to build “scalable, secure, device backend data services”. It added that it is committed “to providing as seamless and smooth a migration option for Parse customers as soon as possible.”

Parse Server will offer a “truly fully hosted solution” so developers don’t have to manage database instances, installs and upgrades.

It will also have high volume push notification support for iOS and Android and will assist developers with app migrations.