There is a popular belief that if an application is hosted on the cloud servers, then the end solution can be called as cloud-based architecture. But this is not necessary every time. To further clarify this, let us understand that first and foremost it has to meet 4 principles in order to be called as a cloud-based architecture.

Make effective use of cloud technology through the application architecture.

These 4 principles are as follows:

• Elasticity
• Pay-by-use
• Self-service
• Programmatically

Along with the above-mentioned principles there are other factors that need to be taken in consideration:

This activity minimizes the load on the web server, minimizes the utilization of various resources, and reduces the operating cost. Let us take an example to understand this. If we are sending a file from end user device to cloud storage, we would get an idea as how has been operating. The end user initiates the process of uploading a file to the server using a web page or mobile app. The file gets uploaded to the web server and stays in the server’s local file storage. After the a web server ensures that the file upload is completed by the end user, it will indicate the backend service.

If the file size is big, the transfer from web server file storage to cloud storage will take more time. More web servers need to be deployed when too many users are trying to upload files. So now you understand that it is complete wastage of time, resources, and the cost. At the same time, the end user will also not understand when the file will be available for the use.

How cloud can help?

• Effective use of cloud as spoken earlier saves time and resources
• Cloud storage functionality makes use of unlimited bandwidth
• Cloud providers such as Amazon S3 and Azure Blob offer ‘Shared Accessed Signature’ feature
• Any file stored in cloud storage can be shared with anyone
• This way the end user can directly upload files from their device to the cloud storage

How does it function?

• The end user will initiate the upload file functionality on the web server provider page/using app
• Web server creates temporary place on cloud storage and generates write access signature which is valid only for some time (the time may vary)
• Web server passes access signature to the client browser/mobile app
• Once the file upload is completed, the browser or mobile app will indicate that to the web server

You should keep in mind here that no backend process is involved in this process. There was no usage of web server’s local storage. And most importantly, time is getting saved in the process.