Why Next-Generation Digital Products Need Cloud Infrastructure

Hiscox features The DesignMob in its recent advertorial in Fast Company.

In this post, Michael Madgett, CTO at The DesignMob, sheds light on "the cloud".

It's been 6 years since Amazon Web Services launched their IT infrastructure alternatives in the form of cloud computing, and it has been a huge success. Why is cloud infrastructure so important for apps, websites, social networks, and other digital products? Well, it's scalable and it's low cost.

Let's talk about the core of cloud infrastructure, scalability. You are an IT/technology company with a great app idea and your marketing team tells you the market reach is 10 million users. How are you going to serve data to just one percent (100 thousand) of these potential customers? What if you obtain the adoption of 3% of your potential market within two weeks of launch? How much infrastructure will that take? With a cloud infrastructure plan, this no longer becomes an issue. Cloud infrastructure will scale to meet the rapid influx of these customers and facilitate the rapid acquisition of new customers.

This is made possible through cloud-focused companies, including Amazon and Google, which are providing access to their own highly available cloud infrastructure empowering digital products ranging from search to online shopping. The digital products The DesignMob offers can also benefit from the collective research and development of these successful cloud-focused companies.

Ok, so how about cost? Let's compare cloud infrastructure to the traditional dedicated hosting model. Most companies that offer dedicated hosting solutions require you to pay monthly or yearly. What if your small business is only using 20% of the dedicated resources made available to you at any given time? You still have to pay for 100% of the resources.

Not so with cloud infrastructure. When using a cloud infrastructure platform such as Amazon Web Services or Google App Engine to power your digital products you only pay for what you use. If your requirement for one month is serving 100,000 customers and the next month it's 50,000, you will pay less in the next month because you are consuming less cloud infrastructure resources. Cloud infrastructure's ability to downscale will save you money, which is crucial for today's digital products.

Michael Madgett is the Chief Technology Officer of The DesignMob www.thedesignmob.com - The DesignMob is a full-service digital agency specializing in building digital products, digital marketing, and cloud infrastructure.