What Does Google App Engine Mean?
Google App Engine (GAE) is a service for developing and hosting Web applications in Google’s data centers, belonging to the platform as a service (PaaS) category of cloud computing. Web applications hosted on GAE are sandboxed and run across multiple servers for redundancy and allowing for scaling of resources according to the traffic requirements of the moment. App Engine automatically allocates additional resources to the servers to accommodate increased load.
Techopedia Explains Google App Engine
Google App Engine is Google’s platform as a service offering that allows developers and businesses to build and run applications using Google’s advanced infrastructure. These applications are required to be written in one of a few supported languages, namely: Java, Python, PHP and Go. It also requires the use of Google query language and that the database used is Google Big Table. Applications must abide by these standards, so applications either must be developed with GAE in mind or else modified to meet the requirements.
GAE is a platform, so it provides all of the required elements to run and host Web applications, be it on mobile or Web. Without this all-in feature, developers would have to source their own servers, database software and the APIs that would make all of them work properly together, not to mention the entire configuration that must be done. GAE takes this burden off the developers so they can concentrate on the app front end and functionality, driving better user experience.
Advantages of GAE include:
- Readily available servers with no configuration requirement
- Power scaling function all the way down to “free” when resource usage is minimal
- Automated cloud computing tools