Web Development in the Cloud: Bootstrapping an Enterprise-grade Website on a Shoestring

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The Cloud has become a marketing professional's dream as a buzzword, but what does it mean to the multitude of web developers out there working in the real world? This book looks past the hype to explore how the new world of web hosting, one that is based not on shared hosting platforms but dedicated and scalable resources, can be leveraged by web developers on any budget.   The book features real-world examples on how to develop for such Cloud-based hosting services as Heroku, Docker , and EngineYard, with links on GitHub to code that actually works.   The book is broken down into 12 Chapters.   First, an introduction to the Cloud, especially as it relates to Web Developers.   Next, the book describes how APIs work, and explains HTTP and REST in a way that web developers at any level can relate to and quickly leverage.  Before you can use most Cloud-based web hosting services, web developers need to learn Git, the source control system most Cloud-based hosting services such as Heroku and EngineYard use. With that in mind, the book offers a gentle introduction into the basics of Git.   After that, it’s on to another gentle introduction, this time to Amazon Web Services, along with the nitty gritty of deploying a website to such AWS-based Cloud services as Heroku, Docker , and EngineYard. The book even explores how you can make a website more secure using Cloud services.

The book then explores four commonly-used types of web applications, and how they can be integrated into a website using Cloud-based APIs:  1) Data, with specific use cases geared towards MongoDB and MongoDB Cloud services.  2) Multimedia, with a detailed look at integrating photography and video Cloud services, and an introduction to streaming music through Cloud-based APIs. 3) Email, and how to send transactional email using a Cloud-based API. 4) SMS, or instant messaging, and how to send messages to smart phones over the Cloud.   From there, the book explores the importance of Content Delivery Networks, and how to use them.   Next comes the world of web fonts, and how to implement them to make it possible for users to see the same fonts no matter what kind of device they are on.   The concluding chapter dives into the two web applications that come bundled with the book, a PHP-based application and a Node.js-based application, both of which contain working examples of API implementations covered throughout the preceding chapters.   The book is replete with links to resources to help readers consume the thousands of APIs available on the Cloud today, and contains a comprehensive appendix with links to dozens of Cloud services relevant to deploying a website on today’s modern infrastructure.

The book is geared towards intermediate to advanced web developers, so if you've just begun learning the basics of HTML, keep in mind that the book's examples are heavy with JavaScript. That doesn't mean you won't find the chapters on how to set up your web site for a cloud infrastructure useful. But beginners may need to turn to some of the more detailed examples after they've mastered the basics.

The book is written by Chuck White, who has nearly 20 years of web software development experience, including a long tenure at eBay and PayPal. The author's first book focused on developing for IE5, back before Ajax was all the rage. That book discussed Ajax, which later took off. Today, the author takes on another subject that is changing the way web developers work. If you're interested in Cloud development for the Web, this is the place to begin your journey.