Behind the app

ENAR

Instagram, Angry Birds and Shazam were created by tech savvy developers. The brains behind these amusing mobile experiences had to build two types of codes to provide their app: one deployed on the mobile device for the functionality and user experience — dubbed the “front-end” code and the reason for our choice of one app over another — and one deployed on a server infrastructure for the database, security, social network integration, etcetera — dubbed the “back-end” code. While the front-end code is usually particular to each app, the back-end code is mostly identical among apps.    A startup to help startups To simplify the “back end”, data centers started offering hosting, or space on a server, to app developers. Developers’ lives got even simpler in 2006 when Amazon introduced “utility computing”, allowing them to rent new machines on-demand and be charged by the hour like other utilities, such as electricity. There