MOBILE CLOUD COMPUTING-The World On A Cloud

                      The cloud has been nothing short of a revolution in the computing world.if you thought that cloud computing was the next big thing, it’s time to wake up!

Cloud computing has evolved at such an alarming pace that it has gone mobile! It’s time to usher in a new kind of cloud computing- the Mobile Cloud Computing.

What is Mobile Cloud Computing?

Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) is a blend of mobile computing and cloud computing. It can be thought of as a further development of mobile computing and an extension of cloud computing.

MCC provides cloud based services to users through Internet and mobile devices. In MCC, the mobile device based computing, data storage and information processing has been taken up by the ‘cloud’ and this happens entirely outside the mobile device.

Why Mobile Cloud Computing?

Mobile devices have a wide range of constraints – from weight, size, ergonomics, battery life to heat dissipation from the mobile processors, etc. These constraints take a toll on the mobile hardware resources such as processing speed, memory size and storage capacity. Most of the applications in today’s mobile devices are resource-intensive and in most cases, exceeds the capabilities of the device’s performance.  In such a scenario, mobile computing can effectively harness the power of cloud computing providing virtually limitless processing power and storage capabilities with access to up-to-date databases.

Developers see this as an opportunity to make cloud computing a platform for mobile application development. By bringing up the computing and data processing phases into the ‘cloud’, the capability requirement of mobile devices can be reduced drastically. More and more mobile devices (including low-cost and non-smartphone devices) will be able to access the cloud, thus providing greater quality services to a larger span of mobile subscribers.

Working

Working on the backdrop of the cloud, MCC enables users to send service requests to the cloud through a web browser. The cloud has components that allocates the needed resources for the request and establishes the connection. Once this is done, monitoring and processing functionalities will kick in, ensuring quality of service until the connection is completed.

Advantages of MCC

The advantages provided by cloud computing apply to MCC as well. Developers and application managers need to have only a single instance of the application running on the cloud. This greatly eliminates the problems associated with different versions of the same program and makes the work of the developer far easier.

All users use the same version of the application and new updates can be made to the application without the user having to download the update.

The biggest plus is that application developers can run the same app in different platforms such as iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows.  As the mobile cloud provides computing and the storage, the need to develop and maintain multiple apps is eliminated.

Another area where MCC has been a real boon is in the social media market. MCC offers better integration with cloud based contents in social media and other sharing platforms. Apps having multiple user features can really help users to access data simultaneously.

The Future

With the advent of new technologies like HTML5 , CSS3, and cloudlets, there is no doubt that the cloud is going to play a very huge role in future application developments. Platform specific app development is going to be a thing of the past.

Mobile applications can greatly leverage on the cloud and provide a more reliable, scalable, and easy to use interface for the user.  Enterprises are sure to ride on this new wave as workflows become more mobile and fresh revenue streams start opening up.