This is the second in our series of “Cool Apps” created by our talented Cloudian team. The object of the contest was to use object storage in creative ways. We challenged the team to create apps that are simple and interesting using our S3 API. You can learn more about the contest and see another finalist here.
Shinichi Hayashi, who is part of our support team, created a very interesting tool which lets you quickly visualize the contents of a folder.
Data Visualization in Action
By pointing the app at a specific folder, you can see a visual breakdown of the contents. With minimal setup, you can generate a basic word cloud for text files. Or you can take huge amounts of data and categorize them in more meaningful ways. For example, with 911 call data, you can create a graph that shows you what people are calling 911 for, and the associated percentages.
Besides emergency calls, there are infinite use cases for this type of app – any data you need to categorize or visualize, you can do it simply by using Amazon S3 storage.
How the App Works
The primary inspiration for creating this data visualization app stemmed from Hayashi-san’s experience working with web services. When creating previous web services, he had to learn a variety of tools:
- Front End (Design): HTML + CSS + BootStrap
- Front End (JavaScript Framework): AngularJS
- Back End (Web Server): NodeJS Express
- Back End (Database): MongoDB
- Back End (Backup): create backup scheme to S3
This is a lot of technical knowledge required to create something similar. By using Cloudian as the foundation, he was able to greatly simplify the process by cutting out a lot of the extra Back End work. Only Cloudian S3 was needed to cover the web server, database, and backup.
Additionally, utilizing Cloudian allows front-end developers to have direct access to storage, removing the need to set up an application layer and storage database separately.
To learn more about the technology driving this Cool App, check out Cloudian’s solutions.
