governing

School of Computer & Information Sciences

ITS-532 Cloud Computing

Chapter 14 – Mobile Cloud Computing

Learning Objectives • Describe the evolution of mobile computing • Discuss the different generations of cell phones • Discuss the ecosystem that comprises the mobile web • Describe the roles of phone network operators, transcoders, and

proxies • Compare and contrast web pages, applications (apps), and widgets • Discuss the importance of HTML5 with respect to mobile

development • Describe mobile development considerations

Which Came First?

• Is the cloud is driving the growth of mobile computing or mobile computing is driving the growth of the cloud?

Smartphone Use • Browse websites, including Google, Facebook, eBay,

and more. • Place face-to-face video calls to phones and computers. • Perform GPS-based navigational operations. • Exchange text messages. • Perform e-commerce operations. • Run a myriad of applications (apps).

Understanding the G in 3G and 4G • When you discuss phone capabilities, you will hear terms such as 3G and 4G. In the simplest sense,

the G stands for generation.

Mobile Cloud Ecosystem • An ecosystem is an environment that consists of living and nonliving things with which one

interacts. • Many cloud-based companies use the term ecosystem to describe the user’s environment. • Items in the Mobile Cloud Ecosystem include:

– Phone class, which may be voice or face-to-face – Web browsing – Applications (apps) and widgets – Voice commands and voice recognition – Display screens – Transmission speeds for upload and download operations – Keyboard interface – Touchscreens

Mobile Cloud • The mobile cloud consists of apps and web pages that

originate from sites within the cloud from which users download, or with which they interact via a mobile device.

• When you create a mobile solution, you should consider how your solution interacts with or supports the various mobile-device ecosystem components.

Transcoder, Pages, Apps, and Widgets • Within a mobile network, a transcoder may modify web content to a form

and layout more suitable for a mobile device. • Developers build mobile solutions in one of three ways:

– First, they can build a web page, ideally targeted for a mobile display. As users browse the Web using mobile browsers built into their phones, the contents of the web page appear.

– Second, developers can build an app, which typically is a device-specific program that users download and install (either free or for a price) onto a device.

– Third, developers can create a widget, which is much like an app that the user downloads and installs to his or her mobile device. A widget differs from an app in that the widget is always active.

Multi-Device Broker

Figure 8.35 A multi-device broker contains the mapping logic necessary to transform data exchanges between a cloud service and different types of cloud service consumer devices. This scenario depicts the multi-device broker as a cloud service with its own API. This mechanism can also be implemented as a service agent that intercepts messages at runtime to perform necessary transformations.

Endless Apps • From business apps, to games, to education, there are hundreds of thousands of

apps available for the iPhone.

Real World: W3C Mobile Page Checker

• Web developers should be familiar with the W3C website and its outstanding development tutorials and tools.

• When it comes to malformed HTML tags, mobile web browsers, because of their compact size (code size), tend not to be as forgiving as desktop browsers.

• Before you launch your mobile pages, you should validate your code using the S3C Mobile Checker at www.w3c.org/mobile

HTML Markup • An HTML markup file and its display within a web browser and mobile device.

Revisiting the Role of HTML5 • HTML5 is the fifth major release of HTML. • HTML5 is important because developers can use it to

create multimedia pages similar to what they previously created using Flash.

• Unlike Flash-based pages, which handheld browsers could not display, HTML5 multimedia pages display on all devices. In this way, HTML 5 opens a vast new area of development for mobile devices.

Mobile Device Requirements • The mobile web is not the traditional web • Fast is good • Remember your goals and requirements • You cannot support everything • Do not treat mobile content as an afterthought; create,

do not convert, mobile content • Handle different display sizes differently

Real World: WebKit Browser

• As you drill down through the specifics of mobile web browsers, you will find that many run the WebKit open source browser.

• You can learn more about this browser and download the source code at the WebKit website, www.webkit.org

Real World: mobiReady Page Checker

• Developers will often customize web pages for mobile delivery.

• As you develop your pages, you should test their content against the mobiReady page checker.

• As you enter a URL on the mobiReady page, the site will evaluate your page content and display a detailed report.

• Based on the report feedback, you can adjust your page components.

Real World: The “.mobi” Top-Level Domain

• Developers will often create separate web pages for mobile displays. • To direct users to those pages, developers have several options. First, they can have

their web software detect the device type, such as a computer or phone, and then download the appropriate pages dynamically.

• Second, many developers will place the letter “m” before their site domain name (creating a subdomain), such as m.somesite.com or even mobile.somesite.com.

• Third, just as sites use the domain types .com, .org, and .edu, many mobile-based sites now use the “.mobi” domain type, such as www.somesite.mobi.

• Developers can purchase a .mobi-based domain name at most domain name registry sites.

Key Terms

References

Jamsa, K. A. (2013). Cloud computing: SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, virtualization, business models, mobile, security

and more. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Secondary:

Erl, T., Mahmood, Z., & Puttini, R. (2014). Cloud computing: concepts, technology, & architecture. Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.