Leveraging Cloud Services in Mobile App Development
With mobile cloud computing, creators of mobile apps may take advantage of the unquestionable power of remote servers to simplify their workflows and increase the scalability of their products. Find the best custom mobile app development company for your business.
Oh, there’s a cloud. Most of us mere mortals find the concept to be impenetrable and nebulous. Is it something out there in the ether with infinite space for our stuff? Is it a futuristic building housing a massive server? The mysterious thing that baffles some and intrigues others has become a concrete location, urging us to entrust our data to it as millions have done before us with good reason. The cloud may not be a real fluffy storage facility. Still, it plays a crucial role in our digital lives by providing a virtual infrastructure that appears to be tailor-made for creating cutting-edge mobile applications. The question is, “How?” Since the introduction of cloud services.
What exactly is “the cloud”?
Computing resources, such as servers, storage, and applications, can be made available over the internet using the cloud computing concept. Instead of using a single server or computer, data is distributed across a network of servers located elsewhere on the internet and used to store, manage, and process information. This eliminates the need for enterprises to purchase and maintain costly in-house IT systems while providing flexible access to computing resources on demand.
Cloud providers often offer cloud computing as a service, taking care of the underlying Infrastructure, security, and maintenance. At the same time, customers gain access to the cloud’s resources via a client program or web browser.
When creating apps, Cloud-based app development offers a more streamlined and affordable option for enterprises. It allows companies to adjust their Infrastructure in response to fluctuations in demand, provide remote access to applications, and protect sensitive information, all of which can boost their overall competitiveness.
Five major ways in which mobile app development teams are impacted by cloud computing
Teams building mobile applications rely largely on these five cloud services to cut development and deployment times.
There’s no denying that the mobile app industry has some of the shortest development cycles around. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that mobile app development teams prioritizing speed to market rely significantly on a wide range of cloud-based technology.
Here are the top five ways that cloud computing is contributing to the success of mobile projects:
- Web hosting
It’s no wonder many businesses are outsourcing application hosting to Amazon’s EC2 service, given that the company pioneered in the cloud computing space with its Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering through its EC2 platform. However, Amazon is only one of many companies in this expanding market; clients increasingly favor Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings, where they give up some control over their operating system and runtime environment in exchange for fewer configuration issues and less administrative overhead. This is especially true about IaaS plays like EC2. Mobile applications increasingly use cloud-based hosting services since they are the most proven and true method of utilizing the cloud.
- The use of payment gateways
Apple’s simple and uncomplicated payment method made it regular for the suppliers of iPhone and other iOS-based programs to become popular, contributing to the overall success of Apple and the iTunes store. And when we discuss success, what we truly mean is financial prosperity.
However, as the mobile industry has evolved, several app creators have voiced their displeasure with Apple’s business model and are exploring other options for accepting payments. Unsurprisingly, several cloud-based payment gateway providers have emerged, allowing application developers to easily conduct financial transactions with their customers without worrying about lost sales due to reliability issues or software bugs that might arise if similar financial transaction processing systems were built in-house.
- Web Analytics
The phrase “know your customer” has been given a whole new meaning by the creators of mobile applications. Maybe it’s because mobile apps often have fewer screens and fewer, more well-defined functionality. The narrow scope of mobile apps makes it easy for programmers to incorporate data from Web analytics and user behavior into rapid iterations of new features and improvements. More and more mobile applications depend on cloud-based services to collect, store, and display data on users’ interactions, all to improve their products continuously.
- Observing Program Behavior
You may be pleased with your in-house resources, including your analytics engine and data center, but if everything is managed in-house, how would you know if something went wrong? It is best to have a cloud provider with systems built with reliability and failover in mind to monitor the uptime of your mobile application on a global scale and to have a reporting structure to adhere to depending on whether the system was down for two seconds, two minutes, or two hours.
- Development
So much has been said about the advantages of using the cloud during runtime, but many companies are still hesitant to deploy in the cloud fully and are instead testing the waters with less crucial tasks. Mobile development teams are generally the first in a company to begin genuinely using the cloud, as they deal with code management and use random test data that would not cause any shame if it were spilled out to the world in the event of a service provider breach.
Cloud-based issue tracking systems, source code management systems, load testing tools, and even full-scale IDEs that remove the desktop from the equation when developers are producing code all serve to facilitate the interests of these cloud-exploring pioneers.
Conclusion
The cloud has prompted massive shifts in software development at tech firms. The vast majority of businesses today are either creating cloud-based applications or are in the process. The cloud’s proven efficacy and convenience have made it a must for businesses today. Opportunities are opening up, and app development is being revolutionized, all thanks to the cloud platform. It’s time to use the cloud, maintain an up-to-date presence, and enhance your apps’ usability. Custom mobile application development services can take your business to heights.