DataPlex website designers and software engineers tied together several web technologies to launch Dynaroll Corporation’s new state-of-the-art website. Dynaroll’s website is now the most extensive destination for all things ball bearings: for ordering ball bearings, learning more about ball bearings, using ball bearings in assemblies, assembly production and qualification, and torque testing. It consists of over 400 pages of technical information and bearing data.
This is a sidebar to our Article “Exploring Cloud Computing“.
Here is a rundown on most of the current issues concerning cloud computing:
Security – While a leading edge cloud services provider will employ data storage and transmission encryption, user authentication, and authorization (data access) practices, many people worry about the vulnerability of remote data to such criminals as hackers, thieves, and disgruntled employees. Cloud providers are enormously sensitive to this issue and apply substantial resources to mitigating concern.
Reliability – Some people worry also about whether a cloud service provider is financially stable and whether their data storage system is trustworthy. Most cloud providers attempt to mollify this concern by using redundant storage techniques, but it is still possible that a service could crash or go out of business, leaving users with limited or no access to their data. A diversification of providers can help alleviate this concern, albeit at a higher cost.
Ownership – Once data has been relegated to the cloud, some people worry that they could lose some or all of their rights or be unable to protect the rights of their customers. Many cloud providers are addressing this issue with well-crafted user-sided agreements. That said, users would be wise to seek advice from their favorite legal representative. Never use a provider who, in their terms of service, lays any kind of ownership claim over your data.
Data Backup – Cloud providers employ redundant servers and routine data backup processes, but some people worry about being able to control their own backups. Many providers are now offering data dumps onto media or allowing users to back up data through regular downloads.
Data Portability and Conversion – Some people are concerned that, should they wish to switch providers, they may have difficulty transferring data. Porting and converting data is highly dependent on the nature of the cloud provider’s data retrieval format, particular in cases where the format cannot be easily discovered. As service competition grows and open standards become established, the data portability issue will ease, and conversion processes will become available supporting the more popular cloud providers. Worst case, a cloud subscriber will have to pay for some custom data conversion.
Multiplatform Support – More an issue for IT departments using managed services is how the cloud-based service integrates across different platforms and operating systems, e.g. OS X, Windows, Linux and thin-clients. Usually, some customized adaption of the service takes care of any problem. Multiplatform support requirements will ease as more user interfaces become web-based.
Intellectual Property – A company invents something new and it uses cloud services as part of the invention. Is the invention still patentable? Does the cloud provider have any claim on the invention? Can they provide similar services to competitors? All good questions and answerable on a case-by-case basis.
Once someone understands that cloud computing potentially suffers from much of the same fate as proprietary systems, the question becomes “do the advantages of using the cloud outweigh my concerns?” For low-risk operations and for insensitive information, the answer can easily be “yes.” Realize that cloud-based services can be backed-up, verified, double-checked, and made more secure by combining them with traditional non-cloud IT processes.
This is a sidebar to our Article “Exploring Cloud Computing“.
Here is a list of the five most common types of cloud computing.
Software as a Service (SaaS) – a single application, library of applications, an API of web services, infrasructure or development platform users who are not necessarily aware of one another interact with through their browsers; Salesforce.com, Google Apps and Zoho Apps are a few examples. Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) are closely related derivatives of SaaS.
Utility Computing – specialized apps coupled with dynamically reconfigurable resources with often a significant reliance on virtualization for ease of maintenance, portability and scalability.
Managed Services – piecemeal software extensions for existing IT departments such as virus scanners for email or remote desktop managers.
Service Commerce Platforms – a hybrid of SaaS and Managed Services presenting an automated service bureau. Think ADP.
Internet Integration – a combination of any or all of the above, from the same or different providers over a common “service bus,” today in its infancy. The “bus” is a standardized data transfer subsystem which allows different providers’ service elements to be plugged in and swapped out, allowing data to be shared across different providers and giving competitive choice to the user.
These services are provided by “cloud service providers,” also called “cloud vendors” or “cloud providers” for short. A “public cloud” provider is one who purveys services to pretty much anyone on the Internet. The largest public cloud provider in the world is amazon.com’s Amazon Web Services. A “private cloud” is a proprietary network or a data center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of other organizations or people. When public cloud resources are used to create a private cloud, the result is called a “virtual private cloud.” Private or public, cloud computing provides easy, scalable access to computing resources and IT services.
Volume 4, Number 1
Could You Be Using It Someday?
We have entered an era of Things Cloud: “cloud storage,” “cloud computing,” or, just simply “the cloud,” referring to how IT personnel often represent the Internet in their diagrams. Are there opportunities to save money or get improved processes by moving to the cloud? In our analysis, we find that the answer is a qualified “probably so.”
The Cloud
Most business have already encounter the first embodiment of the cloud, “cloud storage,” also know widely as “online storage,” where data is kept not on your local computer but “somewhere” on the Internet, often accessed through a web portal that serves as a user interface for storage and retrieval. Flikr, Gmail, Facebook, and Remote Backup are examples of large implementations of cloud storage. While cloud storage has been around for a while, the cloud-based concept is in the process of evolving into not just providing data storage but operations on that data as well. We’ve entered the age of “cloud computing.”
Posted in Articles, Business, Computers, Enterprises, Networks & Servers, Systems, Website Design
Tagged backup, cloud computing, cloud storage, cloud strategy, data conversion, diversification, intellectual property, ownership, patents, portability, redundancy, reliability, SaaS, scaleability, security, Service Commerce Platforms, Software as a Service, the cloud, Utility Computing, virtualization
One of our clients noticed that his website wasn’t showing up on smartphones and other mobile devices. The problem was that his website used Adobe’s Flash which doesn’t render properly or at all on some mobile devices. We describe a solution in this first of a two-part series.
The Problem
Adobe Flash (formerly from MacroMedia) is a mature and dominate technology platform for showing animation on and providing high-end user interfaces for websites. Before smartphones, Flash could claim upwards of 99% browser penetration.
Flash’s penetration has been poor with smartphones. Up until recently, no smartphone supported Flash, and even today, only a limited number of smartphones support all the core features of Flash.
With the growing dominance of mobile smartphones, some companies whose websites rely on Flash are realizing that they cannot adequately reach their customer base. Companies that invested tidy sums in making their website into state-of-the-art user experiences are finding that a growing number of their customers are unable to interact with their sites from Flash-incompatible smartphones.
This is a problem that will eventually get corrected. While there seems to be some political posturing between Adobe and Apple with regards to bringing Flash to the iPhone, Adobe and ARM, the processor company behind most smartphones, are wrapping up a technology collaboration announced in November 2008 to bring Flash to most other ARM-powered devices by late 2009 or early 2010, and we are already seeing the results of that collaboration. We think it is clear that Apple will be forced to tag along at the end of the day.
Which smartphones support Flash? Basically, the iPhone browser does not while some of its apps do, the Palm Pre is about to, and all the Android 2.0 devices such as Motorola’s Droid and Google’s Nexus One do and will. Unfortunately, there are more iPhones than anything else, so this presents serious problems for existing websites that utilize Flash.
The Solution
If a website has just one or a few small Flash elements for effect but most of the site including the home page is non-Flash, e.g. HTML, then it would show the occasional blank space where the Flash animation would go. If a website’s home page or other web pages are completely Flash, or if the website relies solely on Flash for site navigation, then it may be mostly unusable.
In either case, the website would benefit from having some non-Flash-based alternatives dropped in and activated when a Flash player is not available. While the alternatives make not be as “flashy” (sorry), this quick solution will make a website more smartphone compatible.
DataPlex engineers know how to install alternatives to Flash into a website. Contact us for more information.
There is another, more clever technical solution which keeps some if not all of the “flashiness.” You can read about here in Part II (coming February 2010).
Posted in Business, Mobile Computing, Website Design
Tagged Adobe, Android, Apple iPhone, Flash, Google Nexus One, HTML, Macromedia, Motorola Droid, Palm Pre, SmartPhone
DataPlex enhanced PrefixSuffix.com, a major online English language reference site. DataPlex engineers added clear navigation, engaging content and revenue generating ads, converted a static word root list to a MySQL database, then greatly expanded it, while adding some “sticky” educational games.
These enhancement were designed to make the site more attractive to more visitors and to keep visitors on the site longer. One week after going live with the improvements, PrefixSuffix.com experienced a four-fold increase in traffic and and twelve-fold increase in revenue.
As part of its ongoing study of Internet sales and optimization, DataPlex established PrincessMania.com, an online store with a specific marketing theme. Powered by several technologies from Google and amazon.com, PrincessMania simplifies the selection of princess-theme gifts, books, DVDs, electronics and toys. To aid site administrators, it has associated with it a collection of easy to view sales and marketing reports.
Posted in Internet Marketing, News, Website Design
Tagged amazon.com, Google, marketing, News, online store, Website Design
In less than two weeks time, DataPlex revamped the websites for Alchem Field Services and The GTL Corporation. The sites have a crisp new design with newspaper-like formatting, providing easy navigation and clear presentation, and they have detailed product descriptions, photo galleries and news columns.
Posted in News, Website Design
Tagged website, Website Design, website engineering