The most interesting takeaway from a Wired article on Box’s move to include collaborative editing in its file sharing service:
“…what’s happening now is that the applications are becoming the primary portals to our data, and the notion of the file is fading away. As Levie indicates, you never browse a PC-like file system on your phone. You access your data through applications, and so often, that data resides not on your local device, but on a cloud service somewhere across the net.”
Aspera, Inc. today announced the beta availability of Aspera Drive, their new unified sharing and collaboration platform for big data, combining complete desktop explorer integration with performance and ease of use, transparent support for on–premise and cloud storage, and with security, management and access control.
The Aspera platform allows for transfer and synchronization of files sets of any size and any number with maximum speed and robustness at any distance, with the full access control, privacy and security of Aspera technology. Its architecture allows the platform to be deployed on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid model.
Aspera Drive brings remote file browsing, transfer, synchronization, and package sending and receiving to the desktop, browser and mobile device. A backend architecture and API allows for fine-grained, centralized control over content access, security and bandwidth, regardless of content storage location – on premise or on cloud.
I once read that a favorite writer of mine, when told by people he met at cocktail parties how much they “wanted to write,” would reply, “No, you want to have written.”
Protecting and preserving our digital lives is much the same — we want to have already taken care of it. We don’t actually want to go through the hassle of doing it.
An article by Rick Broida in PC World sums it up thus:
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who have lost critical data, and those who will. In other words, if you use technology long enough and neglect to back up your data, you’re guaranteed to have at least one extremely bad day.
The article goes on to outline “How to build a bulletproof cloud backup system without spending a dime“. There’s a lot to do, it all takes effort, but he’s right. Whether you take all his recommendations or some, it’s a good place to start thinking about the steps you (we) all need to take.
Here’s an idea: Come up with a plan and implement it in pieces until you get to the point where you know you are ready for the digital disaster that is out there waiting for us all.
Zoolz is promoting their cloud backup service with an offer to give the first million users 100 GB for free. For life. The catch? It uses AWS Glacier, Amazon’s cheaper alternative to S3. Glacier of course enforces a delay of 3 to 5 hours to retrieve files, and there are limits to monthly retrieval. But for the right purposes (like, “Store & Ignore”) it might be a real deal if you act soon enough. Their intro video explains:
Riverbed Technology today announced Whitewater Operating System (WWOS) version 2.1 with support for Amazon Glacier storage and Google Cloud storage. WWOS 2.1 increases operational cost savings and high data durability from cloud storage services, improving disaster recovery readiness. In addition, Riverbed introduced larger virtual Whitewater appliances that allow customers to support larger data sets, improve disaster recovery capabilities, and manage multiple Whitewater appliances from a single window with a management console. These enhancements to the Whitewater cloud storage product family help enterprises use cloud storage to meet critical backup requirements, modernize data management strategies, and overcome challenges created by data growth.
“Once created, most unstructured data is rarely accessed after 30-90 days. Leveraging the cloud for storing these data sets makes a lot of sense, particularly given the attractive prices of storage services designed for long-term such as Amazon Glacier,” said Dan Iacono, research director from IDC’s storage practice. “The ability of cloud storage devices to cache locally and provide access to recent data provides real benefits from an operational cost perspective to avoid unnecessary transfer costs from the cloud.”
Cloud Storage Ecosystem Expansion Riverbed is offering customers choice and flexibility for data protection by adding Amazon Glacier and Google Cloud storage to its Whitewater cloud storage ecosystem. Now, Whitewater customers using Amazon Glacier cloud storage have immediate access to recent backup data while enjoying pricing from Amazon as low as one cent per gigabyte per month — approximately eight times cheaper than other currently available cloud storage offerings.
In addition, the extremely high data durability offered by Amazon cloud storage services and the ability to access the data from any location with an Internet connection greatly improves an organization’s disaster recovery (DR) readiness.
Larger Virtual Whitewater Appliances With the introduction of the larger virtual Whitewater appliances, Riverbed allows customers preferring virtual appliances to protect larger data sets as well as simplify disaster recovery. The new virtual Whitewater appliances support local cache sizes of four or eight terabytes and integrate seamlessly with leading data protection applications as well as all popular cloud storage services. To streamline management for enterprise wide deployments, WWOS 2.1 includes new management capabilities that enable monitoring and administration of all Whitewater devices from a single console with one-click drill down into any appliance.
“We have been successfully using Riverbed Whitewater appliances for backup with Amazon S3 in our facilities in Germany, Switzerland, and the U.S. since June 2012,” said Drew Bartow, senior information technology engineer at Tipper Tie. “We were eager to test the Whitewater 3010 appliance with Amazon Glacier and the total time to configure and start moving data to Glacier was just 24 minutes. With Glacier and Whitewater we could potentially save considerably on backup storage costs.”
“The features in WWOS 2.1 and the larger virtual appliances drastically change the economics of data protection,” said Ray Villeneuve, vice president corporate development, at Riverbed. “With our advanced, in-line deduplication and optimization technologies, Whitewater shrinks data stored in the cloud by up to 30 times on average — for example, Whitewater customers can now store up to 100 terabytes of backup data that is not regularly accessed in Amazon Glacier for as little as $2,500.00 per year. The operational cost savings and high data durability from cloud storage services improve disaster recovery readiness and will continue to rapidly accelerate the movement from tape-based and replicated disk systems to cloud storage.”
Dropbox today announced a new application programming interface for in-app synch. The new API is intended to lure developers to Dropbox by making programmers’ life easier by letting their native iOS/Android apps treat users’ cloud-based files as if they were stored locally.
“Give your app its own private Dropbox client and leave the syncing to us.”
Learn more at Dropbox.
LogMeIn Inc. announced the general availability of its new cloud sync and storage service, Cubby. An easy-to-use, secure cloud service for sharing files across devices and with other people, Cubby offers the flexibility to turn any number of PC or Mac folders into ‘cubbies’ that can be accessed from Android phones and tablets, iPads and iPhones, as well other PCs and Macs from virtually anywhere in the world.
People can quickly share individual files or entire folders with others via a simple one-click link, or can choose to invite friends, colleagues, clients, and business partners into their ‘cubbies’ to collaborate across shared files and projects. The free version, Cubby Basic, includes Cubby’s signature sync-in-place flexibility (any folder can be a ‘cubby’), free desktop and mobile apps, 5GB of cloud storage, and the ability to share files via the cloud.
A premium version, Cubby Pro, builds on this by offering the flexibility to share content across computers with or without the cloud (via Cubby’s distinct DirectSync™ mode), additional controls for sharing your most sensitive content, multi-user accounts, and 100GB or more of cloud storage.
CloudBerry Lab today announced the beta version of its new CloudBerry Cloud Migrator service that allows users to transfer files from one cloud storage to another. The service supports data migration between Amazon S3, Windows Azure Blob Storage, Rackspace Cloud Files and FTP servers.
Cloud Migrator service by CloudBerry Lab is a web application that lets users transfer their files across different cloud storage services without installing any additional software. All copy operations executes inside a cloud and managed through the web interface.
The service allows users to copy files between different locations or accounts within one cloud storage provider as well as between different. It’s a perfect solution to painlessly migrate data from one Amazon S3 bucket to another or from Amazon S3 to Azure Blob Storage or Rackspace Cloud Files and vice versa.
Finally, Cloud Migrator supports FTP so it can also be used to easily copy/move files from an FTP server to any of the supported cloud storage accounts with no need to implement complicated scripts.
In the Cloud Migrator future releases, the new low-cost Glacier storage by Amazon AWS will be added to the list of supported cloud storage accounts.
CloudBerry Cloud Migrator is available at http://sync.cloudberrylab.com/
Cloud computing and cloud storage have revolutionized how we as businesses and individuals work. Think of how we used to work before the cloud entered our consciousness—we’d have to print documents, make copies, and deal with temperamental servers, as well as crashing computers. Sure, these things are still part of the bigger picture, yet doing our work and business online has made it less of a cumbersome experience and that much more user-friendly.
The Advantages of Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage
Think about the last time you actually sent someone a letter by regular mail. Was it years, or decades ago? Depending on your age, you may never have actually physically mailed a friend a letter before. As technology changes, so does the world around us—what we once considered science fiction has now become our reality. The good news is, however, this brave new world does offer some pretty cool advantages.
Cost is perhaps the biggest selling point for cloud computing. Businesses that use cloud computing and the best online storage methods almost always see a major decrease in cost, as cloud storage companies are able to charge significantly less than a company would pay not just to purchase, but to maintain and repair their servers. With a cloud storage company, you also get top of the line service and the best technology, again at a significantly lower cost than you’d be paying on your own.
With cloud computing and storage, we can also all seamlessly share our data with other businesses or clients or even friends across the world. Remember the days of overnighting fed-ex packages (and paying enormously painful international rates)? Those days are now thankfully gone, at least for the most part—with cloud computing and storage the ease in which we do business has greatly improved.
Travel and gas costs have significantly decreased as well, as the cloud allows us to work with others without having to travel “door to door” to accomplish our daily business. Businesses can now have clients and employees access related files from anywhere, simply through an organization’s cloud.
The Cloud Critics
Every advance in technology has its critics, and the cloud is certainly no exception. But the truth is, the cloud is actually a much safer alternative to more traditional methods of data storage.
Though hacking is often listed as the #1 concern of most considering cloud storage, what most people don’t realize is that your less at risk of being hacked with a cloud storage company than you are with your own backup methods. This is because most cloud storage companies have made security their top priority, and they’re equipped with more advanced security technology than most companies or individuals could even begin to afford on their own.
Systems inevitably crash; the advantage of cloud storage is that you’ll still have a backup of all your data. And unlike expensive hard drives, the cloud will not just one day conk out on you.
With cloud storage, your files can also be reconfigured automatically, complying with computer languages that are always changing, therefore allowing your information to be accessible for many years down the line.
