Someone once said you’re just as good as how you screw up and how much you can grow for it.
The same holds true for mobile apps and mobile software in general.
You have a great idea, you build a great piece of software, and the app gets a lot of attention, usage and visibility, which is what you were going for in the first place……and then things go south.
Your app or your servers slow to a crawl or drop dead like the plot in the Lost series.)
We could name a ton of reasons why this happens but in a nutshell it would go something like this.
Or in other words, you didn’t scale your app for a large user base.
Worry not, we’re here to help, after all, apps grow, and with growth comes challenges and benefits.
So we’re going to take a look at what it takes to avoid the aftershock of having your app and servers perform slowly or outright dying in your arms.
Benefits of scaling an app:
First rule of mobile app scalability:
When a thing goes wrong, test it, fix it and add a huge dash of load testing/balancing and see if other bugs/errors pop-up…then test some more. Test it till the cows go home and the servers start screaming like a kid without candy.
This approach is very efficient because it acts like a magnifying glass when your app is really under pressure.
It helps you find errors and bugs you wouldn’t have found otherwise.
Another thing that happens when you scale your app is that you reassess the integrity of your entire architecture.
Which leads to a few tidbits of how to efficiently scale a mobile app.
A distributed architecture that gives you an efficient management of resources.
Load balance/test like there’s no tomorrow. Works especially well with event apps or time sensitive deployments.
Elastic resources that go hand in hand with a pay-as-you grow approach. Instead of following a traditional payment method for servers, regardless of the ebb and flow of usage and requests, using a pay-up-front approach with elastic resources ensures a cost effective solution for your app.
Scalable databases optimizes your traffic/cost balance and gives you a good app performance even if you have a buckeload of people usining your app.
All of these, based upon the idea that you’re going to use cloud based services, such as Amazon’s Web Services.
Knowing when to scale your app is vital if you want to maintain a good UX and performance.
Analytics, like always will be your first friend that gives you a heads up when your app start to grow.
Also, each time you update or modify your app, write a newsletter or feel like it’s about to undergo a massive load spike, then it’s time to start scaling it.
A siege is also a good approach when you are sure you’re going to have a lot of traffic towards your app, such as a companion app for Game of thrones when a new episode comes out.
So what’s the endgame when you’re scaling a mobile app?
Besides ensuring that your app doesn’t perform sluggish, you create a solid environment where you can effectively leverage key moments for your marketing campaign, promotions, offers and every opportunity you can think of.
A basic example would be the fact that when app prices drop for iPhone apps, downloads grow by 1665% and on iPad’s by 871%, where revenues grow by day 3. (Distimo) If you intend on riding the next discount wave for apps, scalability should be on your to do list.
So the next time you’re getting a vibe or your analytics tools show you your app is starting to gain traction and reach the spotlight, scalability will net you intelligent application mobility and you’ll see now nice it is to offer a great app performance for thousands of users or more.
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Related article: ,,Don’t panic! Here’s how to quickly scale your mobile app”
