Newstex Vice President of Technology and expert cloud developer Chris Moyer's new book, Building Applications in the Cloud: Concepts, Patterns, and Projects, is now available through online and offline book sellers.In his book, Chris introduces proven patterns for cloud platforms from Amazon,  IBM, Microsoft, Google, and other providers. He demonstrates these  patterns at work through extensive example code and case study  applications for Python and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Whether you’re building new solutions or adapting existing code, Building Applications in the Cloud teaches readers how to use cloud architectural patterns that  deliver superior performance, scalability, and availability. The book covers topics such as:

• Principles of successful cloud solutions
• Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Services that cloud service providers offer
• Image design that gives your cloud application a strong foundation
• Patterns for interacting with external systems
• Executing code segments against your data
• Clustered multiserver deployments

From the Preface of Building Applications in the Cloud:

This book isn’t designed as a tutorial to be read through from  cover-to-cover. It’s not a guide for how to build an application for the  cloud, but instead it’s designed as a reference point for when you have  specific questions. When your boss hands you a new project and tells  you to make it scale, check the patterns discussed in this book to see  what fits. When you work on a project and you find a specific problem  that you don’t know how to handle, pick this book up. If you’re trying  to start on a new project, and you have a perfect idea, but you don’t  know how to scale it, pick this book up. If you’re trying to modify an  existing project to scale in the cloud, pick this book up. If you don’t  know what kinds of applications you can build with cloud computing, pick  this book up.
This book doesn’t invent many new patterns but  simply shows you the tricks and new techniques that you need to consider  while running them in the cloud. Although you can use any patterns  discussed in this book in any sort of clustering environment, they’re  designed to take full advantage of the services provided by cloud  computing.

If you're interested in learning more about building cloud applications and want to learn how to maximize the value of your cloud applications while avoiding potential problems, then pick up a copy of Building Applications in the Cloud.