GCM message to all users (without topics)

Question

I have the following dilemma:

• I need to send a heartbeat message every 5 minutes (or less) to all users of my app
• I thought about topic messaging, but the 1 million subscriber limit is not acceptable for my application
• So: the only possibility left is sending out the message in batches of 1000
• This is really resource intensive

Now my question:
How can I make this process of batching and sending really efficient? Is there a good solution already made, preferably in node.js?

Thank you,
Sebastian

Answer 1

You may use XMPP, instead of HTTP.

As google says, it is less resource intensive in respect to HTTP:

The asynchronous nature of XMPP allows you to send more messages with fewer resources.

Also you can have 1000 similtanouis connection per app (sender ID):

For each sender ID, GCM allows 1000 connections in parallel.

Also there exists a node-xmpp solution available for that.