Deliver Cloud Storage To Your Desktop

By -

 

Cloud Storage Services

Cloud Storage Services were relatively unknown until Amazon mass produced the now well-known S3 (Simple Storage Service). S3 may not be the first cloud storage service but it is among the first for the public with billions of objects stored. Now we are seeing other cloud storage vendors coming out, such as Nirvanix, Windows Azure, EMC Atmos Online/AT&T, Parascale, Box.net and etc. Google has long been in the cloud services business with the GMail service, the Google Apps Engine, the Picasa photo service and etc, with Google storage backing them up.

Desktop Access To the Cloud

A common theme of cloud storage services is that they all provide some API (Application Programming Interface) over HTTP. If the Cloud Storage were to be as popular today as the FTP for the past decade, it needs to have a desktop client that delivers the remote storage to the user's desktop, preferably as a Virtual Network Drive. After all, nobody wants to code a Ruby & Rail or .NET application just to get some simple transfer done.

New Challenges - So Many Different APIs

It wasn't like FTP when all the FTP Servers in the world talking the same FTP Protocol. Since the Cloud Storage Services are so new, each vendor pretty much defines its own API. A common protocol might appear in the future such as the Simple Cloud API effort. However, the state of the art is that every vendor is divided so to deliver a quicker to market solution. As a result, every cloud storage service has a different API.

Basically, the Cloud Storage APIs can be categorized into several groups.

(1) REST over HTTP/HTTPS

Amazon S3, Windows Azure, Nirvanix, EMC Atmos Online, Google Data API, Box.Net

  • Pro: Simple, Easy to achieve application compatibility on the server end. Push the complexity to the client end if so desired.
  • Con: Needs developer support to write new applications for these APIs .
(2) WebDav

Parascale, Box.Net and other vendors

  • Pro: Existing Desktop Client Support
  • Con: WevDav protocol is too big and too complicated. The Server side keeps the complexity. New applications written will have to take on the same complexity.
(3) FTP

Some established companies simply repackage existing products with a cloud label, with FTP access.

Cloud Vendors' Approach To the APIs

  • Big companies such as Microsoft pushes for the simple REST API from day 1 with lots of developer supports.
  • Smaller companies may have dual-protocol support in both REST and Webdav.
    • easier adoption with existing WebDav client early on.
    • later migrate to a simpler REST API for internal growth and scalability reasons.
  • The simpler the API, the easier to manage, both for the vendors and for the developers writing apps. Simplicity attracts developers.

Ubiquitous Client

Gladinet's effort is to combine all these different cloud storage services and bind them to the Windows Operating System. The end result is a ubiquitous client that turns the Windows Explorer into a Storage Portal. There is a virtual network drive with a drive letter. All the supported cloud storage services are mountable within this network drive. (You can find more details of the functionality in the reference)

clip_image002

Use Cases

The speed of the internet determines the use case. For example, if everyone were still using Dial-Up network, nobody is talking about cloud storage.

Use Case I - Direct Random Access

Broadband is the norm nowadays, with speed varies around 100KB/S - 800KB/s. A response time of < 5s is required for good usability for direct access. This means direct random access to the cloud files with 500K-4M in size will be very usable. As a simple experiment, a directory listing of the My Documents folder on my PC reveals 237 Files with 46M Bytes total. I have on average 200KB per file for the files that I used the most often.

Use Case II - Online Backup

At current broadband speed (slower than the 802.11B wireless network), a bigger use case is online backup, which is write once and seldom read. At this stage, the cloud storage can't replace either the network attached storage or the local hard drive because of the speed but it is perfect for backing up stuff.

Use Case III - File Server with Cloud Backup

An interesting twist is to combine the Use Case I and Use Case II by moving the access point from user's desktop to a file server. Users can do direct random access on a network server while the network server is backed up by online storage. As a second product coming out of Gladinet, the Cloud Gateway fits this use case.

Future Looking

With fiber becoming the next wave of the broadband, the speed of the internet will catch up with the local wireless network, we will see more use case in the network attached storage becoming cloud aware. We will see more and more people using Cloud Storage in a supportive role to the main local hard drive while the local PC, the local hard drive all increase their speed too.

Conclusion

As of this writing, Seagate i365 just announced the support of Cloud API and Google Docs opens up with 1G of free storage. With the speed of the internet increases, you will see more and more vendors adopting the cloud storage paradigm. You will see more and more developers writing applications towards the cloud services. Eventually, the internet is the computer.

Reference

1. Manage Azure With Ease - An overview of basic functionalities using Azure as an example

2. Gladinet Web Site

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Access and Backup to HP Cloud Storage

By -
Image
Today HP moved its cloud services to public beta. Gladinet has been working closely with HP Cloud Service since private beta to provide product integration support. Gladinet is also announcing today the support of HP Cloud Storage service with the full Gladinet Suite of products. In the latest Gladinet Desktop Client, you will see the HP Cloud drop down, which allows you to attach your HP Cloud Storage account into Windows Explorer as a mapped network drive. At the next screen, you can enter the related HP Cloud account information.
Read more

7 Biggest Limitations of SharePoint Online And How to Fix Them

By Anonymous -
Image
SharePoint benefits encourage businesses to migrate their file server data online. However, there are at least 7 limitations of SharePoint Online and OneDrive that need to be effectively addressed to reduce migration costs and eliminate OneDrive sync failures. In this article, we'll identify some of the common issues that complicate SharePoint migrations and ways to simplify the migration and solve the issues. Here's a list of common issues: 5,000 item limit in a document library 100,000 item sync limit for the OneDrive client NTFS permission reorganization requirements Maximum name length limitations Prohibitive costs of data reorganization 93 day recycle bin threshold Lack of support for legacy application data (databases, etc…) Obviously, you may not hit every issue in each migration but migrator beware if there's a lack of awareness of how these limitations could impact user experience, productivity, and cost. A Real-World Example Before we discuss each of these items...
Read more

Optimizing 3D Rendering and AutoCAD Performance in Remote Work Environments

By -
Image
Introduction: The Challenge of Remote Work Whether you are a design company or an architecture firm , you'll find that managing large 3D and AutoCAD files across remote team members creates performance and collaboration issues. This article introduces CentreStack as the one-stop solution for transforming your remote work experience. Identifying the Obstacles in Remote 3D Rendering and AutoCAD Usage The Challenge of Distance Data must traverse long distances when working in separate locations, introducing latency issues that hamper real-time collaboration. The Burden of Growing Files Technological advancements in 3D rendering tools and AutoCAD have led to larger file sizes, making performance even more of a challenge. The Downside of VPNs and Cloud Storage Solutions Traditional VPN technology has become more sluggish over time despite hardware upgrades or additional bandwidth. Common cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and SharePoint aren't optimized for AutoCAD file typ...
Read more