How Mobile Developers Benefit from the Cloud

Welcome to the world of modern technology, where it is constantly improving and becoming a huge part of society. Major electronic devices such as smartphones seem to have become a necessity with most users.

According to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) Internet Trends, mobile users check their smartphones 150 times a day, and on the 2013 Our Mobile Planet: Hong Kong research shows 96% of mobile users in Hong Kong never leave home without their smartphones. These reports indicate that local users rely more on their smartphones on a day-to-day basis.

Consequently, start-ups, enterprises and independent mobile developers would go the extra mile to find the right apps platform to build, test, and host their mobile applications.

There is an unending growth of opportunities for start-ups and enterprises in the mobile industry. By combining mobile and cloud, building apps will be much easier, faster and efficient.

Here’s how mobile developers can benefit from the cloud:

1. Scalable solutions for development needs – Mobile developers and enterprises can scale network resources for their development needs. Cloud vendors offer affordable prices for hosting mobile cloud apps and a solid cloud environment for them to build and test apps at their convenience.
2. More focus on coding – Whether the user is a rapid developer, coder or DevOps pro, the cloud also provides a managed service. It allows mobile developers to concentrate on coding and developing the application while the cloud vendor’s team of experts does the Ops such as maintaining, upgrading, troubleshooting and patching the mobile backend.
3. Automatic app deployment – Since the cloud is massively scalable, it comes with a control panel where mobile developers can manage and control the servers programmatically. Rackspace Mobile Stacks is a good solution for automatic app development. The platform allows developers to start building apps on a pre-configured cloud backend.
4. Speedier app development – The cloud vendor manages the pre-configured cloud backend, which accelerates app development compared when working in an on premise environment. The pre-configured mobile backend does not require developers to build from scratch in every project; instead, it gives them more time to innovate and focus on designing apps, resulting to a faster development.
5. Remote access and full control on servers and files – Finding the right cloud vendor is a quest worth pursuing, especially if developers are more concerned in terms of having a full control on the servers and files. There are cloud vendors that offer mobile cloud app solution, allowing mobile developers to quickly access and control cloud servers, cloud load balancers and cloud files by using their smartphones.
6. Stability and 100% uptime – It is important that the developer’s or corporate website is stable and runs in 100% uptime to handle the traffic, especially if the website is used as a marketing channel to promote the mobile applications. Fortunately, the cloud is powerful enough to not only host just the mobile applications, but also offers stable network availability.

Once mobile and cloud are maximised, mobile developers will enjoy a wealth of service features that can only be experienced when developing apps in a cloud environment. If developers prioritise value rather than profit, it is wiser to leverage on the power of cloud to handle the mobile apps.

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