Mobile computing has gripped a new era where we have witnessed many smartphones entered the market, but not all of them were able to win the marketplace. With many technologies in space, we are unsure where the future cell phone technology 2020, specifically, the future smartphone technology, stands out. One of the prime reasons behind it is that mobile technology is a combination of hardware, software, and services. Thus, to survive in this highly competitive age, the new cell phone coming out must be more than just a rectangular box in our hands.
Furthermore, with many advancements in the mobile computing space, smartphones have many potentials, which can be fully utilized if we can overcome technical limitations such as hardware issues. The battery is a primary bottleneck here. Since the software does not have physical restrictions like the hardware, it can overcome the constraints. The role of cloud computing in mobile technology or mobile cloud computing is similar to that. And it is an inevitable fact that in this competitive market, hardware alone can’t make a smartphone stand out.
Implementing mobile cloud computing is not rocket science, and we have already introduced it in our smartphones. Facebook, Google Drive, Microsoft Office 365, and Salesforce are just examples of cloud services that we use every day. It effectively takes the function of Software-as-a-service (SaaS).
Why is the role of cloud computing in mobile computing?
A mobile phone is a combination of hardware and software. Hardware with a combination of software and services make the job better and easier. Let’s consider the evolution of cars. The fuel mode of a car has changed from diesel to electricity, but the basic structure of a car remains the same. It is still a combination of four wheels, one steering, an engine, etc. There is no reinvention of the wheel here, and the only thing is the mechanics behind it have been modified. Similarly, a smartphone’s hardware won’t have much change; only the software and services can be changed through processing mode.
Every smartphone has a processor, and a single processor limits it. So, what if you want to back it up with an entire server room? No doubt, you can't carry an entire server room in your pocket. So, power and portability are two significant issues here. But with cloud processing, you can trade-off this additional processing. It works as a direct link between your cell phone and the server room. Thus your smartphone becomes not only a cell phone but also a server room as a cloud-connected tiny gadget. So, it is an excellent transformation of the smartphone into the cloud with a combination of hardware, software, and services.
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Benefits of using Cloud computing in Mobile computing
Using cloud computing for mobile processing has several benefits from technological to business points of views.
Speed
Processing capability hugely influences the browsing speed of a smartphone. This is one primary benefit that we can achieve using cloud-based mobile computing. Just imagine, instead of a single processor, a room of servers are processing the information in this case. This is, no doubt, an enhancement of entire capability.
Cost Savings:
Once you're on the mobile cloud, easy access to data will save time and money. And, if you are worried that you will have to end up paying for features, then as we know, most cloud-computing services follow the pay as you go model. So, you don't need to drop money on the cloud if you are not interested in the service. The same applies to data storage on the cloud as the pay as you go model used here. Taken together, these factors result in lower costs and higher returns.
Resource-saving
When you are on the cloud, you don't have any extra burden for local resources like a server room, CPU, battery consumption, data consumption, etc. With the cloud, it is an explicit resource-saving with no loss of quality. Suppose you want to compress and pre-process a web page, and it could be performed using JavaScript and cloud computing. Consequently, you can achieve faster browsing and loading time. It can save almost 90 percent of your phone’s data bandwidth. Resultantly, the actual processing that happens on a user’s smartphone is limited, whereas most of the action happens on separate cloud servers. So it wouldn’t be charged to a user’s data plan.
Mobile Cloud Computing Security
Smartphones are more vulnerable to a security breach when connected through the internet. To protect, you need to guard it with antivirus, which again slows down the processing speed. In this context, cloud processing holds excellent benefits for a smartphone's security. So, with the cloud connection, you can effectively keep your smartphone safe from internet threats. Even if attackers manage to breach a connection, they will be accessing the cloud servers, not the user's personal device.
Multiple Platform support
As data processing happens on the cloud, we can easily access various apps and store data on the cloud irrespective of the platform.
Data backup and recovery
The cloud disaster recovery technique is used for data backup and restoration, which is very efficient. In mobile accessibility, due to this cloud storage, you are out of the risk of losing data.
The role of Cloud computing in the cell phone technology space is becoming increasingly popular for businesses of all stripes. It is a solution giving a new kind of flexibility and reliability to the customers for small to medium-sized businesses and enterprise-grade businesses. It offers customers a new type of flexibility and reliability. So, it is expected that people will make the switch to the cloud to get the maximum benefit from these platforms.