Deters, R2010-09-172013-01-042011-09-212013-01-042010-092010-09Septemberhttp://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-09172010-152833Social networking applications that are developed using traditional software and architecture have scalability issues. One way to overcome the high cost of scaling social applications is to use Cloud Computing (CC). There are various cloud computing platforms available. One very interesting CC platform is Google App Engine (GAE). This research focuses on using the “free” GAE as a way to re-implement existing social networking applications. The research focuses on how to move social applications into the cloud and on the evaluation of their performance. The thesis investigates the GAE platform, and its features. The study shows how to re-implement a social networking application using GAE cloud with limited code approximately 600 lines and evaluates the scalability of the applications.en-USPlatform as a ServiceSocial Networking ApplicationsCloud computingGoogle App EngineSoftware as a ServiceInfrastructure as a Servicetext