CentreStack transforms traditional file servers into cloud file servers

As a continued research of Cloud Storage speed test , this time the test is moved to EC2. From an EC2 instance, the Gladinet Cloud Desktop is installed. Both Amazon S3 and Google Storage for Developer are mounted as virtual directory in Windows Explorer. The same upload/download test is done to both storage to see how fast they can be.

There are many factors affecting cloud storage speed, such as the Internet pipe between you and the data center that is hosting the storage; how scalable the service provider is; how many user are using it at the same time and etc? We can do an upload/download test to see how fast you can upload data to the cloud storage and how fast you can retrieve the data back. In this experiment, we will test Amazon S3 , Windows Azure Storage , Google Storage for Developers , AT&T Synaptic Storage and Peer1 CloudOne storage.

Google has 3 different kind of storage. Google Storage as in the Google Picasa and Google Docs for a Gmail user. Google Storage as in the Google Apps. Google Storage for Developers as an Amazon S3 Competitor. You can access all three from the convenience of your desktop. Since Google Storage for Developers (GSD) is relatively new. This article will focus on the GSD. Once you are familiar with one, the other two will follow similar steps.

If C in the middle of ABCD is the Cloud Storage, it is surrounded by A, B and Ds to form a cloud storage solution suite. A is Access and Attach .  You need a solution to reach out to access cloud storage from local PC. You need a solution to attach and bring in cloud storage to your file server. You need AFS as in the Gladinet Cloud AFS to get the job done. It is a gateway solving the access and attach problem.

What are the most desired features for offsite backup to Windows Azure? Maybe Backup Exec with the ability to backup to Windows Azure Storage. For this purpose, you can use Gladinet CloudAFS as a CIFS gateway for Backup Exec. The combination is a high end solution. What is the most basic feature for offsite backup to Windows Azure? Maybe an ad-hoc or scheduled drag and drop from local documents to Windows Azure storage for a second copy? For this purpose, you can use Gladinet Cloud Desktop as a desktop tool. This is an entry level solution. Now we will talk about an offsite backup solution to Windows Azure storage that doesn’t require you to buy Backup Exec or do ad-hoc work. The solution will create full and incremental snapshots of local documents and save them to Windows Azure Storage. The solution can work with active documents through volume shadow copy services. The solution can work with SQL Server, Exchange Server and other system states. It is a turnkey offsite backup s...

SkyDrive is cool with 25G free online storage. It is like a virtual key drive to keep files handy without worrying where you have put the key chains. As long as you have your hotmail or MSN messenger credentials ready, you can get in and get out of SkyDrive easily. It is practical to store daily documents on SkyDrive for backup purpose. This article talks about a way to backup daily from local PC to SkyDrive.

Cloud Storage is a hot topic this year. Google I/O is talking about it with the introduction of Google Storage for Developers . EMC World is talking about the journey to the private cloud. HostingCon this year is almost completely dedicated to “the cloud”. You are fully aware of what it is by now. Have you tried it yourself? If you haven’t, here are several steps to jump in. If you have, jump in in the middle.

What is the easiest way to access Amazon S3 , Windows Azure Storage , EMC Atmos , Google Storage , or just the cloud storage as the inclusive term? As a home user, perhaps the easiest is a desktop client tool. Install the desktop client tool, putting in Amazon S3 access key and secret key, you can access Amazon S3 from Windows Explorer directly. For example, Gladinet Cloud Desktop is one such desktop application, connecting directly to the cloud storage. However, for an SMB with a small IT staff, the desktop client may not be the easiest, since it still require some installation and configuration work. The easiest could be a cloud storage solution that allows the end user access the cloud transparently, meaning they don’t even need to know that they are using cloud storage. This is when a Cloud Gateway comes in.

In this article earlier , we talked about Amazon S3 usage is picking up exponentially. This is a very good indicator of how people like and trust Amazon S3 for their online storage. This article will describe a practical method to access Amazon S3 , securely from your local PC. Gladinet has 3 products, Cloud Desktop , CloudAFS and Cloud Backup. The 3 products are all capable of encrypt file content before sending them off to Amazon S3. Today we will focus on the Gladinet Cloud Desktop. The User Interface is consistent through out the 3 products. Once you know one, you can use all of them.

Google Docs is an online application, with web-based word processor, spreadsheet editor and presentation tools. Google Docs is also an online storage. One of the unique differentiator is that it is very cheap at 25 cents per GB per year. It also supports all-file-type so you can store many different kind of documents to it. It also support non-conversion for documents so you can use it as a binary storage. You can also choose to convert documents to Google format, so you can enjoy the online features to edit and share documents. This is all good. Today’s article will talk about how to use Google Docs as a backup destination to keep a second copy of important local documents.

Amazon doesn’t break out the cloud service platform revenue in its quarterly reports. That leaves people wondering how big exactly is the Amazon cloud and how much money does it make? There are some information that is publicly available, such as the number of objects in Amazon S3 storage. As reported in March 2010, S3 has more than 102 billion objects. Earlier in this article , we extrapolating the data to estimate that S3 could have between 130-160 billion objects now and could pass 200 billion at the end of the year.

Hard drive is a commodity. Whether it is IDE, EIDE or SATA, you buy the right one and you can plug it directly into your computer. A commodity is a good for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. Commodities are substances that come out of the earth and maintain roughly a universal price Quote - Wikipedia Cloud Storage is becoming a commodity. The pricing is becoming similar with the interface becoming similar too across cloud storage vendors.

There are already quite some online backup solutions out there. Many of them are end-to-end solutions, including the front end UI on user’s desktop all the way to the backend storage. Solutions like Mozy or Carbonite has its own backend storage. Other solutions may resell Amazon S3 storage. There is also a segment of the market that doesn’t need end-to-end cloud backup solutions. For example, Backup Exec users that already have invested in a backup solution, why should they invest in another backup solution if they want to backup to the cloud?

A March 9 2010 report states that Amazon S3 had over 102 billion objects. I was searching on the Internet, trying to find the most recent report (Aug 2010). I didn’t find what I was looking for. However, I found reports on Amazon S3 data for different time spots from April 07 all the way to March 10, which will be good enough to see a trend and extrapolating to August 2010.

Synaptic Storage is the brand name for the cloud storage offered by AT&T. Synaptic is the parent brand that covers storage, hosting and virtual machines. Cloud Storage Synaptic Storage is similar to Amazon S3 , Windows Azure Storage and other cloud storage services. The storage usage is over the Internet, by HTTPS REST API and billed monthly by usage.

In a couple of years, Amazon and Azure in Cloud Platform and Services could be like Coke and Pepsi in soft drinks. With the launch of Amazon S3 in March 2006 and  Amazon EC2 in Aug 2006, Amazon publicized the “Cloud Services” early that it has a significant lead over its peers. On the other hand, we have seen time and time again how Microsoft take a lead from behind. It is not clear who will be the leader in a couple of years when Amazon has the leader role now. When you look at customers in a given product category, there seem to be two kinds of people. There are those who want to buy from the leader and there are those who don’t want to buy from the leader. A potential No.2 has to appeal to the latter group. Quote:The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing So what are the differences that Windows Azure has that appeal to the latter group?

  Windows Live SkyDrive is an online storage with 25G free storage. It also integrates web  version of the Office applications so you can edit documents directly from inside a browser and save to SkyDrive. However, people are still more used to Windows Desktop than browser when it comes to copying files. Windows Desktop still has more Office applications such as the wordpad, Microsoft Works and Microsoft Office. With Office 2010, you can save directly to SkyDrive. It is a good improvement. It will be even better if there is a direct native Windows Desktop integration to enhance the productivity of copying files back and forth between local hard drive and online SkyDrive account.

Windows Azure™ is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web applications on the internet through Microsoft® datacenters. - Quote Windows Azure Web Site How about the idea of outsourcing your IT’s expanding storage need to Microsoft? This article will talk about different stages you can start experience Azure storage bit by bit.

Looking for a way to backup your SQL server to the cloud? This article focuses on SQL 2005, but the same procedure will work for any version. With CloudAFS, you can now utilize cloud storage space and providers when executing SQL 2005 backup jobs. By attaching or “mounting” your cloud storage server, for example your Windows Skydrive account, to your file server using Cloud Attached File Server, or CloudAFS, you’re expanding the capacity of your server infrastructure at a fraction of the cost, and with no modification to your existing system. For IT professionals, because CloudAFS allows you to publish cloud storage as a network share, the product offers you a powerful advantage when it comes time to schedule and execute SQL 2005 backup jobs. This article will show you how to redirect SQL 2005 through CloudAFS so that your backups will be stored in the cloud, eliminating the risk of losing data due to a machine failure, or any number of other risks associated with storing or b...

Since when we got used to drag and drop documents for copying files? Windows 3.0? Now 20 years later, Windows apps turn into web apps and no drag and drop from Windows 7 to Google Docs ?   We know that HTML 5 is promising with drag and drop support some years later. Now, we will describe Gladinet Cloud Desktop ’s capability to turn Google Docs into a drive and support drag and drop upload/download.

This year, there are so many choices when it comes to pick a cloud storage vendor, such as Amazon S3 , Windows Azure , AT&T Synaptic Storage , Nirvanix , Peer1 CloudOne , EMC Atmos, Mezeo, Google Storage and etc. If you are seriously thinking about expanding your IT infrastructure with Cloud Storage Services, who do you pick and what are the factors to consider?

Windows Live SkyDrive offers a hosted 25G storage service for storing files in the cloud. It offers a browser based UI for you to upload/download files. It offers office web app integration. it also offers saving documents directly from Office 2010. Gladinet , a software vendor, has a solution called Gladinet Cloud Desktop that makes it easy to sync to SkyDrive from Windows Explorer. In fact, Gladinet Cloud Desktop turns Windows Explorer into a cloud storage portal that can easily sync to SkyDrive from other storage services or upload files from your desktop to any storage service you choose. Gladinet achieves this through a complete SkyDrive integration with your file system.

If you can write code against Amazon S3 API and customize your app to be Amazon S3 ready, it is great! Otherwise you need an easier way to access Amazon S3. Gladinet Cloud Access solutions make it easy to manage files in Amazon S3 ! If you need direct desktop access to your Amazon S3 account, use Gladinet Cloud Desktop . If you need centralized Cloud Gateway access without desktop client installation, use Gladinet CloudAFS . If you need an Amazon S3-based online backup solution for folders, Outlook emails or SQL Server, use Gladinet Cloud Backup . 

With the recent introduction of CloudAFS, Cloud Backup and Cloud Space products, they joined the long standing Gladinet Cloud Desktop to form a Cloud Storage Access Solution. Cloud Storage is good but when people need it, they need it from the desktop and the file servers. Some would enjoy writing applications against the cloud storage API. Majority of the users still need a turnkey solution that they can point-and-click, drag-and-drop to use the cloud storage.

You have important files on your computer, sometimes they are in-use, sometimes not. What if there is a Windows Service running in the background, continue to monitor the folders and files and back them up offsite to Windows Azure Storage ? A month later, you may find yourself looking for old snapshots and happily found it on Windows Azure Blob Storage . The file could be outlook pst file, could be an open project file or could be a running SQL server data files. It could also be Windows System State, registry or other key system files. As long as you keep the computer running, you can log off and walk away and the backup service is still doing its work, helping you secure your important files to Windows Azure Storage? Introducing Gladinet Cloud Backup!

  Gladinet Cloud Backup is a Windows Based product and service. If you have x64 based system, you will need the 64-bit package. Otherwise you need the 32-bit package. The supported OS range from Windows XP/Vista/7 to Windows Server OS including 2003 and 2008.  

Gladinet just released a new product – Gladinet Cloud Backup . As the name suggest, it does one thing – backing up to the cloud. This is the 4th product/service from Gladinet.

Windows Azure Platform has been released since Feb 2010. Azure Blob Storage is part of the offering and it provides good online storage service. So how to easily copy data in and out of Azure Blob Storage ? How to do it securely with SSL and AES encryptions for your files? This article talks about how to setup a AES encrypted network drive to Windows Azure Blob Storage.

Amazon S3 API is simple and there is beauty in the simplicity. Google noticed and the Google Storage for Developers has almost same set of APIs. Eucalyptus has Amazon-S3 compatible API too. German based Dunkel Cloud Storage is in this group as well. Most recently, Mezeo announced availability of Mezeo Interoperability API , compatible with Amazon S3, Google Storage and Eucalyptus. So what is so valuable in the Amazon S3 API that it is becoming a standard?

Gladinet Cloud Space is a service that allows you to turn your PCs into a personal cloud and view the files from a browser portal. The service is available in the Gladinet Cloud Desktop 2.3 and above. Later on, it will be available from Gladinet CloudAFS as well. For now, let’s install Gladinet Cloud Desktop first.

Security is one of the major concerns of cloud storage users. Quite often it is one of the factor of whether or not to use a cloud storage and its related product. There are many benefits to backing up your data to Amazon S3 , but how can users be sure that hackers, service provider employees or anyone else can’t look at their files after they’re backed up online? If the files were encrypted, that will certainly make it a lot harder to compromise when the files are online. With the introduction of AES 256-bit encryption for files backed up to Amazon S3, Gladinet Cloud Desktop is tackling that concern head-on: The system simply encrypts users’ files locally before saving them on the servers in their encrypted form.

Windows Live has come a long way since first being announced, tested, and launched in 2005 as a way to extend the Windows user experience. With the advent and subsequent contagion of social media outlets and the Web user’s unquenchable desire to share stuff with friends and family, Windows revamped its Windows Live software again for the fourth time, hence the pseudo name Wave 4. The Windows Live Essential Wave 4 Beta version was released on July 25 th , 2010. There’s a lot of stir around the Web all over gadget and Windows blogs about the new features.

When we were in the habit of using external thumb drive, what is the best practice of keeping documents around? The best practice was that you always save to local folder such as My Documents. At the end of the day, sync the My documents folder  to the external thumb drive with a drag and drop, xcopy or a backup program. First of all, saving to local drive is always much faster than to a thumb drive. Second, keeping a copy on the thumb drive, you prevent accidental deletion of the local copy.  Now we are living with plenty of online storage services around. For example, Google Docs is one such popular service. With Gladinet Cloud Desktop ’s driving mapping capability, you can save documents on Google Docs as if it were an external thumb drive in the cloud.

First we know there is storage in Gmail. After we saw Google Docs, there is storage in Google Docs. If you are a Google Apps User, you will say there are storage in the Google Apps Gmail and Google Docs too. If you have attended the Google I/O event, you will say there is Google Storage for Developers too! Basically there are 3 kinds of Google Storage.

Windows Live SkyDrive is part of Microsoft’s Windows Live range of online services. SkyDrive is an online storage and sharing service that allows users to upload files to the online storage, then access them from a web browser. The service currently offers 25GB of free personal storage. However, to fill up the 25GB is not an easy task. There are several browser based ways to upload files.

Cloud in a loose sense may be used to describe just about anything to do with getting resources from the Internet. In this sense, AOL, FTP may be the first generation of the Cloud Services for the past two decades. In this article, we talk about cloud storage in a sense as something similar to what Amazon S3 is and might compete with Amazon S3 . Why Amazon S3? Because it is the earliest in its kind and sets the standard as the following: Pay-as-you-go storage, billed monthly by usage Provides single known public access point over HTTP/HTTPS REST based API Extremely simple design (buckets and blobs) > 99.999999999% durability and >99.99% availability in its Service Level Agreement Create a developer eco system

Cloud Computing is nice and it lowers the cost of IT ownership and allows companies to focus on their core competencies. Google Docs is a nice cloud computing solution, with integrated online storage and web applications, such as a browser based Word Processor, a Spreadsheet Editor and a Presentation Maker. With Google Docs as the company infrastructure, documents and spreadsheets can live in the cloud with better sharing capability and easier accessibility and less IT total cost of ownership. It is like an IT paradise island that every administrator and business owners would like to go. But wait, how to go there and come back? Where is the digital bridge to reach out to the promising land?

We are helping companies migrating their in house file management solutions to cloud-based Google Docs. We saw one clever way of migration from one of our customer and would like to share the story. The customer has around 100 employees, using an in house file server to share documents. The file server is quite old and can’t keep up with the increasing volume of files. They decided to migrate to Google Docs. The first big task for the admin was to migrate existing documents from the file server into Google Docs before switching everyone over to the new Google Docs-based solution. Migrating 100 users’ documents from a file server to Google Docs is not a  small task. Delegating the migration task to all the 100 users could be disturbing too since not all the users are expert level computer administrators. So how can one IT admin handle all the migration over a weekend?

If I have documents sitting in Google Docs, why do I need to back it up to a different online storage such as SkyDrive? Maybe because I need the peace of mind that I can access it the moment I need from either places. Or in some countries, access to one may be blocked. Or maybe some days, one may go down temporarily. Anyway, it is a good practice to back up documents to increase reliability and availability. This article will show you how to backup your Google Docs files on a daily basis to SkyDrive.

In the Gladinet Cloud Desktop 2.3 release, a new feature – Cloud Space was introduced. So what exactly is the Cloud Space . Cloud Space is a browser portal ( mycloud.gladinet.com ) that you can centrally access your files on your computers. Cloud Space is a service that turns all your PCs into the smallest possible Personal Cloud, with a default browser access interface and a set of APIs. It has a central access point - mycloud.gladinet.com. Once you login, you can access your files regardless of where your computer is. It supports iPad too! Visiting your PC’s file such as PDF file, Word documents from your iPad sounds cool?