To Leverage the Business Benefits of Cloud, Hire Cloud Developers

Sunny Ghosh, Director, Wolf Frameworks, once commented "The end of Fashion IT -customers will only pay for value and not technology... With the advent of Web 3.0 or Cloud Computing or platforms.., what we are witnessing is that everyone can innovate. So yes, Cloud computing will turn the tables and fire up innovation and consumerism to the scale never seen before... " Nothing could have more apt commentary on how the entire business ecosystem has changed with the advent of the cloud computing.

Necessity is the mother of invention and therefore, one can safely conclude that cloud evolved as a result of the increased need for cost efficiency and resource optimization. As a result of this, the market has witnessed a great demand to hire cloud developers. Well it's no more nebulous. With the passage of time, the business benefits of cloud have become clear to the enterprises. Some of these benefits are:

• Enhanced customer-partner relationship: Traditional point to point business model no longer offer flexibility for ensuing business relationships. With the market getting flooded with choices, it has become extremely challenging to retain a customer. Therefore it is important to have flexible Service Level Agreements to ensure easy exchange of information and robust support.

• Improved revenue: Cloud based solutions improve customer facing business thereby directly impacting both the top line and the bottom line. This point towards a subsequent improvement in the metrics such as retention, order size, revenue and margin.

• Increased order accuracy: The e-commerce industry has significantly benefited from the cloud through seamless integration of procurement processes using cloud base solution. The cloud based solutions not only offer accuracy in order management but also eliminate manual intervention thereby, improving inventory management.

• Quicker time to market: Cloud based technologies have a gone a long way in significantly improving the business agility thereby, enabling enterprises to deliver its products and services efficiently and quickly to meet the market demands.

• A competitive niche in the market: Cloud based services has diminished all infrastructural and resources barriers that used to be a yardstick for judging enterprises. Now the market competition solely rests on innovation and the quality of services offered. This is because cloud based solutions offer small enterprises and the SMBs to leverage updated tools and technologies at a cost effective rate.

• Reduced CAPEX: In an age of stringent business conditions, conventional integration solutions can prove to be costly. Not only this, constant updation of the software and hiring a dedicated resource might take a toll on the IT budget. In the case of cloud, enterprises leverage software as a service and pay for what they use thereby, eliminating the need to hire resources and buy software packages.

The cloud has definitely become clearer and is definitely raining in a lot of money. So let us analyze how cloud computing is majorly changing the IT landscape globally. Especially for the SMBs, this means leveraging cloud based services such as Google Apps, Box.net, Quick Books Online, Skype and Highrise. These dramatically brings down the software and computing costs as one does not have to hire resources and pay licensing fees. To top it all, cloud based technologies help SMBs to align their IT infrastructure with the business processes. They recognize the exact IT solutions that they require and leverage them from cloud. These benefits have greatly spurred the cloud development market thereby, scaling up the demand to hire cloud developers.

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Scaling PHP: Traditional and Cloud Hosting

Scaling PHP using database structures

Sharing session data between multiple servers:

Cold fusion, Network File System, Database, Memcached, Redis, Zend server Cluster Manager, Varnish

Scaling PHP using NFS

Advantages: No changes in the PHP code

Disadvantages: Inefficient, not designed for read/write ratio and poor performance & data corruption

Scaling PHP using database

Session sharing using db

Db: MySQL, Ms SQL Server, Postgre SQL, Oracle, etc.

Advantages

Solves scalability problems, wide installation base and DB is readily available

Disadvantages

Sessions have 1:1 read/write ratio, connection overhead, performance issues and single point of failure

Scaling PHP using Memcached

Advantages: Can store memory in RAM, high availability, works fast and can be clustered

Disadvantages: No persistent data and ability to create alternate memory when RAM is full

Scaling PHP using Redis

Redis is an open source NoSQL database, networked, in-memory, persistent, journaled, key value data store. Redis supports not only strings, but also sophisticated data types such as lists, sets, sorted sets, hashes and more.

Advantages: Incredibly fast, persistent, reliable and non-blocking

Disadvantages: Custom PHP sessions handler, Not scalable and no high availability

Scaling PHP using Zend Server Cluster Manager

Zend is for large scale PHP deployments; Can build PHP cluster stack involving even hundreds of servers

Advantages: Fast, reliable, high availability, Scalable & No changes in PHP code

Disadvantages: Zend server support on each node of cluster

Scaling on cloud hosting

Scaling out

With "cloud-hosting", all of the above steps are redundant and handled internally. if you want to scale out from 1 to 5 servers, You can automatically carry out those 4 steps in just 30 seconds. From the management console you only have to move the scale-slider from 1 to 5 and hit the "Confirm" button. This is called "easy scaling" in our parlance.

Scaling down

Deploying a new version is also easy, you just push a new version via git push and your code automatically gets distributed to all the servers in just 30 seconds.

Scaling on Cloud using Amazon DynamoDB

Amazon DynamoDB is the fully managed NoSQL database service offered by Amazon Web Services - as a scalable session store.

Advantages: Native session handling, Create table to store sessions, easy, fast, high performance, scalable, data storage and data transfer fee applicable depending upon size and capacity, designed for read/write ratio with session locking capacity

Disadvantages: SQL database at high abstraction level

Scaling on Cloud using Windows Azure

Successfully manage sessions across multiple instances requires a common data store. Session handling via Windows Azure Table and Blob storage

Advantage: distributed, in-memory, high speed, scalable,secure, read only data, and flexible caching

Disadvantages: No support for SQL Azure store for session handling; reading, writing, and deleting of session data is only slightly more complicated;

Anubavam is a CMS development company offering Drupal Consulting services and Drupal Mobile solutions for organizations ranging from small and medium to large enterprises

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What If Cloud Solutions Weren't Available?

Some things we take for granted so much that we don't even realize how present they are in our daily lives. In fact, as end-users, we often don't realize how fast things are moving in the technology industry.

Let's take one example: before Instagr.am became so popular, it was just one of those ideas that consisted of having an iPhone users post processed photos online and share it with their communities. The idea is pretty simple, but anyone who has been managing internet servers would appreciate more so the complexity and how difficult it is to manage the servers that will manage all those uploaded photos. Not only do those servers have to be very well-connected on the internet so that the upload process is seamless, but then they have to be properly organized. Apart from that, there must be a fool-proof contingency plan that will allow the service to be online 99.9% of the time.

Indeed, having the Instagr.am service online means that some users in the US may be sleeping while others in the UK may want to upload some files. Not to mentions the fact that a failure in the system can be disastrous for the whole system: indeed, should issues happen, the IT administrators should be able to restore the most recent backup - and by most-recent backup, we're talking about the latest snapshot that has been taken a few seconds ago.

Now let's suppose that Instagr.am owners didn't have access to cloud-computing resources for developing their ideas: they would have had to invest into millions of dollars of IT infrastructure as a prerequisite to launching their product, with risk of finding out, possibly a few months later, that the product doesn't "stick". One can safely say that access to cloud-computing resources have definitely helped them with the "proof of concept" phase as well as during the exponential growth they have experienced. The pay-as-you-go model for cloud-based solutions have made it all possible, as well as the vision of the entrepreneurs of course - that definitely helped too.

But Instagr.am is not the only business idea that benefited from cloud-computing solutions. If we look around, we can see that most of the Apps in the mobile world have adopted cloud-computing solutions as part of their back-office IT system. Indeed, a teenager in the corner of their room can even develop a wonderful application just by working on the coding phase of the project, while the infrastructure that's used for "making it happen" rely on cloud computing: from data storage, to servers. If you look at it more closely, there are millions of Apps in the Google Play Market as well as the iTunes market: this is all made possible thanks to the easy access to cloud-computing solutions that perfectly adapt to every innovator's project.

Now I invite you to browse around the mobile apps market (either for Android or for Apple iOS): don't you think there are a lot of awesome (and sometimes unbelievable) ideas being implemented out there? Indeed, one can say that cloud-computing solutions have made it easier for developers to bring a concept or idea to reality "by passing" the huge investment that once was required before even being able to write a single digit of code.

Cloud services such as hosted Exchange and hosted SharePoint are available from Giacom World Networks. For more information, visit http://www.giacom.com/.

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How Mobile Cloud Computing Benefits Development and Usage of Mobile Apps

Mobile cloud computing provides many advantages for application developers as well as their end-users. It is a boon for corporate users in particular, that do not have enough capital to invest upfront on required hardware and software.

Mobile applications have made smartphones "smart". The first wave of mobile apps were native apps, however with the increase in Internet capabilities for mobile devices, apps became faster and more powerful, as it was no longer necessary to manage the data storage and processing within the application.

Cloud computing changed mobile application development forever. With benefits like low initial investment, ease of adoption, scalability and elasticity, operational efficiency and large overall cost savings, it didn't take long for mobile app developers to adopt cloud computing.

Cloud computing offers the performance and flexibility that mobile app developers require. Because smartphones and tablets with advanced browsers are capable of accessing stored applications remotely in the cloud, developers can now build apps one time and deploy them across multiple platforms, including iPhones, iPads, Android devices, etc. In short order, more innovative and useful apps were developed more quickly and cost effectively. With this, the smartphone and app markets began to grow at a remarkable rate that shows no signs of slowing.

Advantages to the users
With cloud-based apps, mobile users do not need high-end hardware and infrastructure to run or maintain mobile apps. Businesses are able to pass along the reduced cost of development to their users, while improving the functionality of data sharing, and offering features like collaboration that were not previously feasible. All told, users with any Internet-enabled device can run many more apps and more powerful apps than ever before, at little or no cost.

Advantages to the developers
The advantages of cloud computing for mobile app developers are most pronounced. One, cost savings. Developers need not invest heavily in building infrastructure and resources. Cloud computing provides instant access to scalable mobile application tools for building mobile and tablet apps. Two, cross-platform app development. Developers can now build an app once and deploy across multiple platforms. And of course, building once and deploying to many devices dramatically reduces the cost of developing apps. Three, deploying apps to app stores and web sites is much easier. For example, developers can avoid device manufacturers or carrier app stores to distribute their apps, and publish them on their own private channels.

The future of mobile apps in the cloud
Despite the many advantages, cloud-based mobile apps will remain hampered by the limitation of wireless bandwidth capacity and intermittent network availability. We expect this will be a short-term problem as new developments in wireless technology are announced every day. In the meantime, alternate techniques like usage of HTML5, which does local caching, enable offline use of apps.

Overall, mobile cloud computing is strong and growing fast. When the limitations on connectivity are resolved, it will become the major player in development and usage of mobile apps.

Application Craft is the world's finest 100% cloud based development environment for mobile, tablet and desktop. If you are looking for a good ' mobile development platform ', we are a solid choice. Our IDE runs in your browser without plugins and despite being browser-based, it has all the power of a full-featured desktop application. Sign up now and build your first app free using our mobile application development tools.

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Solving Data Integration Worries on a Cloud Network

In the age of virtualization where almost everything pertaining to human existence is gradually being replaced by its virtual alternate, it is safe to say that every notable organization relies on a number of virtual solutions with one of the latest to join the league being cloud based solutions. Cloud based applications are unarguably a remarkably cost effective yet efficient alternates to legacy installable enterprise applications and hence, have gained immense popularity in all business domains. However, despite of the benefits promised by cloud based applications, the need for a data integration platform is always there.

It is understandable that every cloud application used at organizational level generates and processes a substantial amount of data. Now, unless you are one of the multimillion dollar enterprises with a budget to revamp your entire database, could data integration is likely to be one of your major worries. This is because every data-centric application requires uninterrupted flow of data from the databases. Now, the databases being designed for the legacy applications fail to perform as per the prerequisites of could-based applications, thereby dampening their overall efficacy by a great margin, and this is where cloud integration solutions come to the rescue.

In simple terms, cloud data integration solutions are aimed at bridging the functional gap between latest could applications and obsolete databases. These solutions not only ensures seamless transfer of data to and from the databases, they also come loaded with other features such as data DE-duplication to optimize the efficacy of your database as per the demands of the cloud applications utilizing them. By promising uninterrupted feed and transfer of data, such solutions enhance the efficacies of the cloud applications being used by the organizations and hence, are able to make a notable improvement to their overall productivity.

In case you are having trouble with finding a reliable data integration platform for your cloud applications, you can easily find a number of solution providers and third party vendors offering suitable solutions. Now, since the options for cloud data integration solutions available in the IT market vary by a substantial margin, it becomes imperative for you to be sure about the efficacy of the one you opt for. Hence, before finalizing any of the apparently viable options, you must have a fair idea about the efficacies you may expect from them, something possible by examining the reviews received by the providers with a credible repute.

Andy Robert is a multi-awarded writer which provides helpful information and assets for those looking for high quality data integration platform. Their mission is to provide the authentic and determined information so you can make an informed decision about Cloud data integration.

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A Primer on Cloud Technology and What "Cloud" Implies

I've been writing a lot about cloud technology in general, as of late. And the thing that most readers tend to wonder is: "Isn't "cloud" just a euphemism for "the internet" in a way?" Well, in a way, yes. But on the whole and on bulk, I'd have to say no. And here's why.

"The internet" is the network itself; it's raw; it's HTTP; it's TCP; it's a network-with the servers, routers [huge servers and routers] that collectively make up this thing we refer to as the internet. And via "this collective", we connect to webpages, websites, and other technologies and services. Ultimately, though, the internet is like a super duper phone line-nothing more. And what can you do with just a phone line? Nothing really, and that's just the point.

What do you need to make things happen with this phone line? Well, for one, you need a phone. You can think of a really simple rotary or touch tone phone as a really simply web browser. With it, you can call out to other phone lines, automated phone menus, other people, etc. This is the same way that the internet works; with a simple web browser you can call out to other webpages, or you can log into simple infrastructure, such as your banking network or a simple social network.

But these days, people don't only want to engage in simple, straight forward calls; they want to collaborate; they want to engage each other; they want to meet new people; they want to do business. And in order to accomplish these things, you need to have a more sophisticated conglomerate of technologies behind you-but not just you, the people, companies, and things that you want to interact with need to be sophisticated as well.

See, a simple network of mere webpages doesn't necessarily make for a "cloud." An open source encyclopedia in which a collective or community contribute to, wouldn't make for a cloud. A cloud is a situation of tightly defined and accepted roles by both parties-the user and the server or service provider-. With a social networking site, roles are defined by the community by members voicing their opinions, and developers on the server side incorporating those opinions and voices.

The cloud also implies automation-so called smart technology. It's fine if a service performs a specific and incredibly sophisticated operation for you, but if that service requires you to manually run it each and every time-or rather program its settings for it to run properly, each and every time-then that's just a mere service; it's not a cloud service.

When people read "cloud service," they expect automation; they expect that service to work smoothly, efficiently, and in the background.

I've been writing a lot of introductions to the cloud on the blog, http://www.cloudstorage.us/. If you'd like more information on cloud technologies and trends in this space, check the blog out.

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