Web Application and Cloud Computing

Web Application is a computer program running on a Web server with an interaction with the user via HTTP. Web Application can be optimized for the Cloud. In other words – Web Application is not synonymous to Cloud Based Applications which are developed keeping to work on Cloud Computing Platform. In this article, we have two parts – Traditional Web Application itself and Web Application which are for Cloud Computing, that is Cloud Based Applications.

What is Web Application

In Web Application the user launches an application, for example through a browser, points to the URL of the Web server and the first HTTP request is sent. The web server receives this request and passes it to a program that is the Web Application. This generates and loads the HTML source code of a web page that is returned by the web server to the browser of the user (HTTP Response). This website is the graphical user interface of the application. Web application does not necessarily require the use of a browser. Requests to Web Application can also be performed by other programs that handle the response of the Web server, such as reading information like stock quotes or sports scores on a website.

We are not going in to details of Web Application in this article as it itself needs a separate article.

Web Application versus Cloud Based Apps running on Cloud Computing Platform

Some times for a commercial buzz, a normal Web Application is delivered from a Cloud Server and labeled as Cloud App. Cloud Apps are also a kind of Web Application as the basic pattern is the same.

Some times  a specific Web Application is developed in a way, so that either it utilizes the advantages of Cloud Computing or it serves the purpose to access some feature delivered by a specific Cloud Computing Infrastructure. For Example, eyeOS is a Web Application that performs better on a Cloud Platform but it can run on any server even on your local computer.