App Engine Part1

Google Power?

The challenges to create and deploy a web application is a major issue as the need for speed and unbridled creativity asserts itself in our day to day online activities.

Focus on your core activity, let Google do the rest. App Engine is an infrastructure to expose Google 's scalable system to your web application. It lets you run your web applications on Google's infrastructure. This is more than simple web hosting. It makes applications easy to build, to maintain, and easy to scale. You don't have to worry about your traffic and data storage, it will expand as needs grows.
There are no servers to maintain: You just upload your application, and it's ready to serve your users. You can serve your application using a free domain name on the appspot.com domain, or use Google Apps to serve it from your own domain. You can share your application with the world, or limit access to members of your organization.

We've reached the limits of the “jack of all trade” web bravado. In a classical web setting, one would typically have a foundation such as a Lamp [Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP] (or equivalent proprietary framework). It is used despite its flaws and inconveniences with various success. However, with the shift from desktop to “webtop”, just getting the job done is no longer enough. Tools should help the creative process, speed the passage from conception to sales this is what both developers and users want.
In a typical business setting, a team, or even a sole developer, must manage issues such as authentication, production code, tools to update data and monitor logs. Applications must be upgraded, code maintained, machines must be serviced. Any serious project is directly confronted with questions pertaining to hardware. This implies a choice of machines, and or a hosting service (ISP, in-house servers ...), and of course some type of data persistence solution (MySQL, ORACLE ...).

Several layers of complications and added workload burdens software developers, web designers, and the end user.
And all this cost money. Behind all the technical jargon and sales pitch, what really is at stake is money. How much is having the proper tool worth to you. Inadequate, ill-fitting software products were once considered to be normal and a natural cost of doing modern business. This feeling of could be better is no longer necessary, and as the word “recession” sinks in, most managers will be attentive to that.

App Engine addresses these issues by making it “easy to use, easy to scale, and free to get started” (up to 500Mb for a maximum of 3 applications). Google runs and servers your code and takes care of your application's life cycle (Log files, runtime Database, status and activity data ...).
All you have to do is create those things of value for your clients and users.

Sounds too good to be true? Is there a catch?
Find out in Part 2