Cloud app vs. web app: Understanding the differences

The line between a cloud app and a web app remains as blurry as ever. This of course stems from the natural similarities that exist between them. I'm of the opinion, however, that there are noteworthy differences, especially when looking to leverage cloud apps for richer user customization experience and seamless integration with resilient and scalable back-end infrastructure, which often characterizes public cloud services.

Here is details explanations of Cloud App and Web App:

Cloud app

For me, a cloud app is the evolved web app. It's equally used to access online services over the Internet like web apps but not always exclusively dependent on web browsers to work. It's possible for a customizable, multi-tenancy cloud app to be solely available over the web browser from service providers, but quite often the web-interface is used as alternative access methods to the custom built cloud app for online services.

Cloud apps are usually characterized by advanced features such as:

• Data is stored in a cloud / cloud-like infrastructure
• Data can be cached locally for full-offline mode
• Support for different user requirements, e.g., data backup cloud app with different features such as data compression, security, backup schedule
• Can be used from web browser and/or custom built apps installed on Internet connected devices such as desktops, mobile phones
• Can be used to access a wider range of services such as on-demand computing cycle, storage, application development platforms

Examples of cloud apps

Some common examples include Mozy, Evernote, Sugar Sync, Salesforce, Dropbox, NetSuite, and Zoho.com. Other qualifying examples such as web email (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Hotmail, etc.) may not be so obvious, but they depend on cloud technology and are available off-line if consumers so choose to have them configured as such.

There are numerous websites where you can find useful information on cloud apps. I foundwww.getapp.com to be particularly informative. It includes cloud app reviews and ratings to evaluate the apps.

Web apps

Web apps on the other hand are almost exclusively designed to be used from a web browser. A combination of server-side script (ASP, PHP etc) and client-side script (HTML, JavaScript, Adobe Flash) are commonly used to develop the web application. The web browser (thin client) relies on the web server components installed on backend infrastructure systems for the heavy lifting in providing its core functional web services.

The obvious benefit that this computing model provides over the traditional desktop app is that it is accessible from anywhere via the web browser. Cloud apps can also be accessed this way.

Examples of web apps

For many, including myself, web services such as WebEx, electronic banking, online shopping applications, and eBay fall into this category in as much as they are exclusively web-based with limited options for consumer customization.

In another example, I would include Facebook and similar types of web applications. I'm sure some will disagree with this, but I don't think Facebook exactly offers customized services. It's simply used as it is provided.

Conclusion

Application service providers have been quick to exploit advantages brought about by pioneering web app building framework technologies for greater customer reach. However these technologies are not necessarily optimized for building new apps for the cloud era.

Cloud apps are web apps in the sense that they can be used through web browsers but not all web apps are cloud apps. Software vendors often bundle web apps to sell as "cloud" apps simply because it's the latest buzz-word technology, but web apps do not offer the same richness in functionality and customization you'll get from cloud apps. So, buyer beware!

Some software application vendors also falsely think that just because their application runs on the web, this automatically qualifies it to be a cloud app. This is not always the case. For your web app to evolve into a cloud app, it should exhibit certain properties such as

• True multi-tenancy to support various requirements & needs for consumers
• Support for virtualization technology, which plays a starring role for cloud era apps. Web applications should either be built to support this or re-engineered to do so

The good news is that vendors looking to move into this cloud app space now have rich development platforms and frameworks to choose from. Whether migrating from an existing web app or even starting from scratch. These new age cloud app development platforms are affordable and agile, reducing time to market and software development complexities.

Download the Linux-based SteamOS and make your own SteamBox now

Valve has finally launched its Linux-based SteamOS for you to download and install on you own hardware. Despite being in “early stages of development” as the company puts it, enthusiasts are free to try it out and share their opinions on what they’d improve.

SteamOS is based on Debian GNU/Linux distribution version 7.1. The minimum hardware requirements aren’t as high as one would think with Valve’s OS needing an Intel or AMD 64-bit CPU, 4GB of RAM, 500GB HDD and an NVidia GPU – support for AMD GPUs is coming soon.

Basically, SteamOS relies heavily on the Steam Big Picture mode. Valve’s ultimate goal is to make SteamOS fluid, reliable and functional enough in order to take all the duties of a home media center. This is also great news for the Linux community, which finally seems to get attention from a large game distributor and that’s vital if it is to be regarded as an alternative to Windows when it comes to gaming.

Anyway, if you have the free time and hardware at hand, maybe you would be willing try it out for yourself. Check out the source link below to get started.

10 Best Blog Sites To Create your Blog For Free

Blogging is growing day by day and there are many platforms which allow people to blog without spending a penny. If you are passionate about blogging and want to start a blog for no charges, this post will help choose from the top free blog service providers.

Best Blogging Sites

I myself started on blogspot (now called blogger) and after years of learning and experimenting I started this blog on WordPress. Although my personal choice will always remain WordPress but for blogging enthusiasts the options are many. You can play around with each and in time you will be sure what to use and what you should not.

I regularly update this post, and i have seen some new blogging platforms and even tried those, with all the services put together, i have made this list as simple and straight.

I hope this post will make few more people interested in blogging.

10 Best Blog Sites

1. Blogger - Blogger is a blog publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at subdomains of blogspot.com. Blogger allows users to publish blogs on other hosts, via ftp. This is my first choice for best blog sites.

2. WordPress - WordPress.com is a weblog hosting provider owned by Automattic which opened to beta testers on August 8, 2005 and opened to the public on November 21, 2005. It is powered by the open source WordPress software. It is financially supported via paid upgrades, “VIP” services and limited Google Adsense advertising. This is my second choice as the best blog sites

3. Tumblr - Tumblr is a microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use.

4. Medium - Medium Founded by Twitter startup guy Ev Williams & Biz Stone, this blogging platform has an extra feature to annotate work of other people, this makes this new blogging platform quite unique. Just log in from Twitter authentication system and you are ready to comment and blog. If you are new to blogging and looking out for readers, then you might want to try medium, as it has a large audience attached to it.

5. Livejournal - LiveJournal (LJ) is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community. LiveJournal’s blogging features include those found in similar blogging sites (multiple authors, commenting, calendars, and polls). However, LiveJournal differentiates itself from other blogging sites by its WELL-like features of a self-contained community and some social networking features similar to other social networking sites.

6. Quora – Quora is a question answer guide, where people like you and me ask question about any topic, and you will answered by the community. Its much like Yahoo and StackOverflow, but they have added blog functionality which is really great.

7. Blogsome It’s easy, choose any kind of WordPress theme, upload photos, personalize your design and start blogging right now. You can also browse samples of the latest posts and blogs. The blogsome.com also offers forums where you can search for any type of answers, read important documentation in relation of the service and terms of use, and you must ask really smart questions so to become part of this community. What the blogsome website intends is to offer a clean service, so when users are found to be using stolen content from other websites as a means of generating traffic, they immediately remove this blogs and cease service.

8. Edublogs - The World’s most popular education blogging service… Edublogs lets you easily create & manage student & teacher blogs, quickly customize designs and include videos, photos & podcasts – it’s safe, easy and secure.

9. Blog - Blog.com provides a fully-featured publishing platform for free. Blog by yourself or establish a writing community, all under an address that looks like: you.blog.com. It also offers free blog hosting with unlimited bandwidth for their free package, more benefits for paid members.

10. Weebly -  Weebly started in 2006 has been providing very extensive well managed solutions for newbie’s. To create a blog website in Weebly you can simply log on with your FaceBook account as well. With 100′s of professional designed templates and superb website building experience, we have kept this great site in our list.

Yahoo Pulse – now closed

Yahoo! 360° was a social networking and personal communication portal operated by Yahoo! made available in 2005. It enabled users to create personal web sites, share photos from Yahoo! Photos, maintain blogs and lists, create and share a public profile and see which friends are currently online. 360° also featured a ‘friends updates’ section, under which each friend’s latest update was summarized (e.g. blog posts, updated lists or newly shared photos).

I am sure their are many more platforms which can be in his list but for now I have chosen these over some others. Let us know if you have a replacement or better blog creating service that you have used.