A new twist, the platform in the cloud, is making the delivery of application functionality even more interesting. Increasingly, applications that run in the cloud are starting to look less like websites and more like platforms, meaning they are starting to sprout Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), code libraries, and even programming models. Collectively, these new kinds of development technologies can be thought of as platforms to run apps in the cloud.
Similar to traditional platforms, cloud computing platforms provide tools that allow developers to leverage existing functionality to create something new; however, because these platform tools are accessed freely over the Internet rather than through an operating system or package that was installed on a local machine, developers don't need to worry about the logistics of putting together an executable that will be installed on a user's machine. Anyone with a Web browser can access it!
The possibilities presented by this new type of platform have emerged quickly, spurred on by the popularity of mash-ups—a website or application that combines tools from multiple cloud computing platforms to create new functionality. Some of the cloud computing platform tools used in today's mash-ups include innovations like Google's search API, which allows developers to use the power of that search engine in their applications, eBay's APIs for auctions and listings, or Amazon.com's system for creating entirely new storefronts. For example, almost any real estate website or application these days uses Google or Yahoo! maps under the hood, illustrating how these new APIs are now commonly running alongside the more traditional database, app server, or operating system platforms.
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