Cloud Hosting Article

Developers and writers such as myself operate in much the same way. We sit in front of a laptop and construct digital creations, whether these creations are built with words or code.

What’s also similar is that focus matters. When I write, I am literally twice as productive when I am able to focus on the writing instead of making calls, answering e-mail and tracking down ancillary details. The same is true for developers, which is why cloud hosting is a real boon for the development community.

That’s because cloud hosts allow developers to focus on code, not infrastructure.

At a recent conference, Michael Smith (News - Alert) of interactive agency Canvas explained why the cloud and its use of hosting provider Engine Yard made such a big difference on output.

“It made it really easy for us to focus our engineering teams on building rich experiences and rich, immersive applications,” said Smith, “and let Engine Yard back us up. When the stuff hits the proverbial fan, we have a team to back us up.”

Instead of focusing on infrastructure, which is not the core business, Canvas could focus on what it does best. This is at the heart of cloud hosting.

A future is not far off where companies can build applications or interactive experiences and not have to worry about the infrastructure at all.

“We believe that a number of cloud operating systems will emerge. There will be something like Amazon, and something like OpenStack, and customers won’t want lock-in. What we expect to do is sit as an open technology on top of any of those platforms,” said John Dillon of Engine Yard.

“We’re going to abstract away all of the infrastructure, all of the buildings, and even the operating system itself,” he added.

Cloud hosting also lets developers scale, something I wish I could do with my writing!

An example is NBC’s website for football coverage, which Canvas developed.

“It turns out there isn’t very much football from February to September,” noted Smith. quipped. But by using a cloud hosting provider, Canvas can help NBC keep resources light for the off-season and then scale up fast during football season and high-traffic times such as Monday nights. An additional 20 servers, for instance, can be provisioned at a moment’s notice.

Such is the power of the cloud, and why more firms are embracing it.