Rastin Mehr – Page 17 – I make apps for science

What is mobile cloud computing architecture

This article was originally published on rmdStudio blog.

Mobile and Cloud apps

Mobile cloud computing is still a mystery to a lot of people in the enterprise and organizations. Here is one one example:

What is cloud? Why do we need to store information in the cloud? Why can’t we just store everything on the phone?

This was asked by the head of IT department in a prominent medical organization in Vancouver. Valid question actually. A lot of people still don’t seem to know what cloud computing is. So:

What is the cloud?

In a simple language Cloud is basically a of very large number of networked servers that work in parallel or distributed fashion to supply a massive computing power at low cost. There is only so much we can do to push the processing speed of a single computer. It is also costly and prone to errors. Meanwhile we can build a large cluster of less expensive computers and benefit from the massive computing power that it provides. In this model the economy of scale comes to play and the more customers run their websites and web apps the lower the cost will be per account.

A good analogy is how we produce electricity. At some point in the history factories and organizations had to buy their own generators and hire teams to maintain them. At some point somebody thought of building an electrical grid and that is why we can all power our homes and offices with a low monthly fee.

When you host a website or web app in the cloud, it isn’t necessarily hosted on a specific machine. In fact it could be running on any of the servers in the cluster at any point in time. In fact from the user perspective each dedicated computer or server is virtual and exists somewhere in the cloud.

Cloud also provides a more reliable environment to host your web apps, because if one of the servers break down, the underlying cloud management software will immediately shift to the next available working machine and continues delivering your web app or website to your end users.

Cloud computing can also be elastic. For example you can configure a virtual server to increase its processing power when your website traffic goes up or reduce the processing power when the traffic is low. That way you can optimize your hosting costs.

Cloud computing is used for both computation and storage. In fact, because of cloud computing the cost of file storage has also been reduced dramatically. Two of the famous cloud computing companies in the world are Amazon Web Services, RackSpace, and Google. If you are looking for a Canadian cloud company you can check out CaCloud.

Why do we build a mobile cloud computing architecture?

For several reasons actually. Here are 5 important ones:

1. The brain of your service is in the cloud

A lot of the mobile apps that you use everyday on your smart phone or tablet are in fact specialized browsers that connect you to the cloud and that is where the real magic is happening. We call this a mobile cloud computing architecture in which your mobile app is the client and the server is the hosted software in the cloud. The server side software may or may not be directly accessible via a desktop browser, but for sure it provides a specialized interface that your mobile app communicate with. We call that an API or Application Programming Interface.

The server side server can be quite complex. For example within your organization it can handle your intranet, products, eCommerce, and CRM all in one. Your mobile app may only access certain aspect of the software in the cloud. For example the app may only access the customer accounts, projects, or portfolio of products. You can actually build different mobile apps that communicate with the same cloud back-end but use different aspects of it.

2. It is easier to share content and assets

In the past people emailed a file or document to a long list of people using email or text message. Now you can just upload it on the cloud and all the mobile devices and desktop computers around the world can access it. That is assuming that they have all the right permissions to do so. The cloud app also takes care of the privacy and permissions.

3. Mobile devices have limited juice

As fancy and powerful our iOS and Android devices have become, their processing and storage capacities are no match for what a server in the cloud can do. Imagine you have a mobile app that is used by hundreds and thousands of users and they are constantly reading, posting, and uploading files. These assets can grow very quickly to gigabytes of data.

Also once you have lots of records, maintaining them locally on a mobile device would really slow down the mobile app which is handling that data. On the other hand when you ask for the last 20 records of products or contact information, the cloud software can zip through a large number of record and immediately send you the 20 records which you have requested over the web.

4. It is easier to maintain your data

If you store everything on your mobile device, every time that you update your data or make changes, you need to resubmit your app to the app store which is a time consuming and inefficient process. Also sometimes you need to run migration scripts and make changes your data. Running large migrations on hundreds and thousands of mobile devices out there is not impossible, but it is a risky task. So many things can go wrong.

If you save all the data in the cloud, then you can update a record with a click of a button and then the updated information will be instantly available to all the mobile users out there. Also running data migration on your server in the cloud will not only be much faster, but also more reliable too. You need to run one migration successfully and all the mobile users out there will be happy.

5. More immune to crashes and deletions

Let’s assume that all the user’s data is stored on the mobile device and the user, for whatever reason, decides to delete the app. In that case all the stored data will be lost forever. If you keep the data on the cloud and do a good job of maintaining it, the data will most likely be preserved. Even if a mobile user lose their device or upgrade to a newer device, they can still reinstall your app and log into their account where all the data and settings are still available.

Appreciating the Mobile Cloud Computing Architecture

Next time that you launch a facebook, twitter, or dropbox app on your smartphone you can appreciate the beauty of the mobile cloud computing architecture and realize that a lot of what the mobile app is doing is actually communicating with a cloud software where all the users are interacting with each other. The brain is on the cloud and your mobile app is merely a transmitter and receiver.

When a geek starts a new activity

Normal people start a new activity so they can meet new people. When I start a new activity I get so obsessed and absorbed by the activity that it becomes yet another brick in the wall. Let me clarify, I do not become competitive, I just intensely geek out by trying to master the new art and possibly take it to a whole new level. And that creates the need to start yet another new activity to diversify my social circle and the vicious cycle continues.

It takes 10 minutes a day to soft reboot your mind

Meditation has been the most natural and effective way I’ve been using to manage my mood swings and anxiety. We all get them and it is human. No I don’t subscribe to all the spiritual and woohoo concepts of meditation and mindfulness. I simply treat my mind as an organic computer that needs a soft reboot from time to time. It is a way to zoom out from a narrow mindset and reminds myself of the big picture. 10 minutes a day is all it takes.

Edward Snowden speaks at the Vancouver TED conference

As you might know TED is now happening in Vancouver. After watching the Edward Snowden’s talk I have even more respect for him. It is important for all of us to keep our freedom and Internet safe from those who wish to control us, in this case our own governments. We don’t have to give up privacy and liberty to have better security.

Reflecting back on my life in 2013

Perhaps I am compensating for all the blog posts that I didn’t write last year, but Reflecting back, 2013 was the time that I invested a lot of my resources in learning more about entrepreneurship and nurturing my network of friends and colleagues. It was also the year that I went through some very exciting and difficult times.

Participating in the WebFWD Accelerator Program

It was last year that I finally got to visit Silicon Valley for the first time, pitch my startup to a few investors, and experience the thrill of it. I had the opportunity of experiencing the startup scene in the capital of technological innovation.

Mozilla HQ In Mountain View

At the beginning last year, we decided to enrol Anahita in the Mozilla WebFWD accelerator program. We were one of the 8 teams that got accepted out of all the applicants and graduated 4 months later. Think of WebFWD as a compact business course for startups. During that time we travelled to San Francisco 4 times. On our final day we pitched Anahita to different crowds of people as well as a few really awesome VCs and Angel investors such as Naval Ravikant (founder of AngleList). We even got mentioned on VentureBeat.

Graduating from the Mozilla WebFWD Program

VentureScape afterparty in Great American Music Hall, San Francisco

We partied and socialized with a crowd of San Francisco entrepreneurs and investors in Mozilla headquarters and Great American Music Hall where we had live music and all the band members were managing directors of some venture capital firms. My LinkedIn contacts grew to over 800 people. I got to meet some really inspiring entrepreneurs and hackerpreneurs that I’ve managed to stay in touch with since then.

Two of the most influential people that I got to meet during the WebFWD program were Pascal Finette who is currently one of my advisors and Dia Bondi to taught me the art of story telling rather than weaving together a string of facts.

Johan Janssens came to visit us

Nick, Johan, Tom, Rastin, Ash on Granville island, Vancouver

Last year I got to meet Johan Janssens in person, because he came to visit us in Vancouver and put us through his bootcamp mentorship. Johan is an open source legend and old time hackerpreneur. I also got to meet his brother Tom and Nick Balestra the co-founder of Beyounic. We had such a great time showing them all the cool spots in Vancouver. Johan, Tom, and Nick later joined us in SF for our WebFWD graduation. Johan helped me prepare for the final day pitch and he also brutally killed some of my slides to bring more focus to my presentation.

More accomplishments on our portfolio

Last year my company’s portfolio grew quite a bit. My software consulting company, rmdStudio Inc., was founded as a web design company in 2000 as I enrolled in UNBC Computer Science program. Few years later we were doing web application development, and today rmdStudio has been developing mobile apps for the past 5 years. We build Android and iOS apps used for looking up information, sharing knowledge, scientific calculations, inductions, and assessments. Another wonderful concept is that we are using Anahita to build mobile apps. Something that we never thought we end up doing using a social networking platform.

Ash, my business parter, departed

The last picture of Rastin and Ash working as a team
Our last picture of us working together

The lowest point of last year for me was when Ash, my business partner of 5.5 years, told me that he was departing. He told me that he was feeling really burnt out. As emotionally difficult as it was for me, I could only empathize with him and respect his choice. Ash and I had spent long working hours and celebrated many small victories together. Unlike what it seems, entrepreneurship is not a glamorous life; it is a gladiator’s life. We had gone through a lot of stressful times together. I guess he had had plenty of stress and anxiety to the point that he couldn’t take it anymore. I thanked him for his great contributions and told him that the times that we had been working together were some of the best years of my life and I had lots of good memories to cherish.

Joining the LaunchAcademy and building a new team

So we sold our humble office furniture and closed down our office. I joined the LaunchAcademy a month later. They are one of the most active tech startup communities in Vancouver. Also, they usually have a few happy dogs playing around in there which is quite awesome. The most refreshing part was finding out that a lot of people in the tech community were happy to see me after years of living in a bubble.

Few weeks after I put together a new team made of people who are very capable and dear to me with a focus on building custom cloud and mobile apps for the Enterprise and Startups.

Continuing with the Anahita project

Anahita DocCamp Presentation
Anahita DocCamp 2013 Talk

Anahita is my life project. Ash’s departure meant that I had to fully take over the responsibilities of Anahita and business operation. It also meant that it was time I further involved the Anahita tribe members in this open source project.

So I contacted the top 1% most active members in the Anahita tribes and conducted 1 hour meetings with each of them over skype and google hangouts. I listened to their stories and invited them to start contributing to Anahita.

Together we organized the first official Anahita event called the DocCamp so participants could learn about Anahita and write and share documentation about it. Some of the Anahita tribe members also started contributing bug fixes and helped with software testing. Last week, we made the Anahita 3.0 Birth release available.

Embracing the change

While transitioning to my new life, I was left with lots of emotions to process. I wished nothing but happiness and success for Ash, but in the meantime adjusting to the change took some time. This event, after all, was the closest thing to an amicable divorce in a business relationship context.

My family was very supportive throughout this time. I also reconnected with some of my friends and met them over coffee (thank you, Travis, Degan, Barbara, and Tracey). The people in the Anahita tribes were also quite supportive and offered to help immediately. The Vancouver tech community embraced me like a darling member of their family. My advisors Johan Janssens, Pascal Finette, and Boris Mann reminded me that I wasn’t bleeding and helped me see the bigger picture.

The remaining 4 months of 2013 scrubbed and polished me quite well and thank goodness for the support I received from the family, friends, community, and advisors. I am so humbled by you, so thankful, so grateful!

Reviving my social life and hobbies

I must say that 2013 wasn’t all trauma and sweat. This was the first year that I started taking Sundays off after years of working 7 days a week. Also, the 90 minute walks to work and back home really helped me get back in shape. Most of my wardrobe now fits me nicely. I’ve been eating and sleeping better and overall I’ve been feeling much healthier than in previous years.

I also restarted practicing illustration again and I’ve been trying to keep up on most weekends. I am still working on developing confident hands and the ability to create characters out of imagination.

I’ve been attending social events more than before and checking out the local swing dance, live-music, and burlesque scenes. I had the pleasure of watching some of the most inspiring musical performances by Bria Skonberg, Evan Arntzen, and the Company B Jazz band. I had a memorable evening watching the sassy Sweet Soul Burlesque perform at their fundraising event in KeeferBar.

Company B Jazz Band

With the talented Bria Skonberg at the Cellar Jazz bar

Swing Dancing at the Company B CD release party

In one of the swing dance nights in Yaletown I had the pleasure of dancing with T-Riely and now I can’t wait to see her live music performance on Feb. 14th. You should check out more of T-Riely’s music videos on YouTube. I have great admiration for people who follow their passions and spend years polishing and nurturing their talents and skills.

The lessons

Now that I think about it, what an incredible year it was! I learned that entrepreneurship is really about personal growth and social impact. It is about the journey and not the destination.

Last year was a reminder that throughout the runway of life, sometimes great people join us to share the journey and then the time comes they want to leave us. At that moment the best we can do is to cherish the memories, wish them well, and let them go. Basically, all good things must end for new good things to start. Change is always difficult.

I also realized that a lot of happiness is resulted by forming and nurturing relationships with people. Especially with those who care about us and believe in us.