CentreStack transforms traditional file servers into cloud file servers

“I want to build a file server in EC2, storage use Amazon S3, user management integrated with Active Directory, and publish network shares with CIFS”. As Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) getting more and more popular and becoming the default for EC2 servers, we are seeing more and more requests like this for Amazon S3. As we will show you in this article, it is not hard to implement this with Gladinet Cloud solutions. There are two hurdles for you to overcome, which Gladinet Cloud does it for you. Problems to Solve (a) Amazon S3 is not  CIFS (Microsoft Network Share) protocol, so you will need an Amazon S3 to CIFS protocol converter. Otherwise, you can’t map a drive directly to Amazon S3. (b) CIFS protocol is a LAN protocol, suitable for local area network. Performance wise, it wasn’t designed for wide area network (AKA Internet). The CIFS protocol is too chatty, involving too much requests and acknowledgements. It is slow to stream files over the Internet from Amazon data c...

As we are providing cloud storage access solutions for OpenStack Swift, we are also learning from our customers about how they are using the solution in their companies. In this customer study, It involves two pieces of technology solutions, the OpenStack Swift, and Gladinet Cloud Enterprise. OpenStack Swift is established off-site, but privately in a data center, with a service provider. The Gladinet Cloud Enterprise is established on-site, providing the on-ramp and connectivity to the private OpenStack Swift instance off-site. The Setup

Here is a pretty common use case. You have an existing file server like windows 2003 or windows 2008 in the local office. Everyone in the local office is using a network share from the file server. There are some users from the branch office that may need to access the file server share from outside through VPN as well. There are multiple pain points that concern you at this moment. First is you are concerned about the life of the file sever and if the server stops functioning, you need to have a quick way to continue the work. Second, the remote users are complaining about the speed of access to the file server since they need to go through VPN. It is cumbersome and slow. Recently you heard the cloud storage and related technology and the possibility to cure all the pain points without disrupting your current work. That brings you to look for a cloud storage solution. Now you are looking at how the solution will help, read on … The Requirement You need a solution that will meet...

Online storage services all come with some standard access methods, such as web browser based file manager and mobile applications. Some come with a synchronization folder. For example, Dropbox, SkyDrive and Google Drive all come with a synchronization folder. For personal use, it may be OK for the web browser based file manager and the synchronization folder. As online storage services getting more and more popular, personal use is gradually turning in to team collaboration over the online storage. Synchronization based accessing method gradually turning into On-Demand Access. So customers don’t want the long wait time for the file to be synchronized to cloud. Instead, they want instant, on-demand access.

Cloud Storage is good for team collaboration. Just like in the LAN environment, you have a NAS device that everyone local to the network can share. Or like a Windows File Server that everyone local to the network can share and the file server can setup folder permission inside the network share. So team collaboration comes with folder permission. When team collaboration is done through cloud storage, folder permission will need to be implemented with the team collaboration solution. This article discuss Gladinet Cloud Team Edition and the related team folder and folder permission features.

Companies want to migrate data to cloud and work from cloud directly. However, they don’t have time to wait for the data migration to happen if it is taking a long time. Here is a typical conversation around data migration to the cloud. Looking for Instant Access “Can Gladinet work as a shared network drive for 20 users within my company? I want to have employees copy and edit files and folders in one centralized drive. For example, the drive would show up in the "My Computer" section of Windows. We don't want something that is only shareable via web sites through web browser. Also, is there lag time for when we drop files to the drive? We want instant access to the files once they are uploaded.” – A customer told us their story and the solution they are looking for. Full Sync too Long The customer then explained their existing solution and why it didn’t fit their requirement.  “Our main problem with the other service we are testing now is that it took 20 minutes to ...

Back in 2007, the title of this article probably didn’t make any sense. The cloud was a diagram to represent the Internet. Cloud Services == Services from the Internet. Now, when someone told you they need a private cloud solution without internet connectivity, you probably can guess what they want to do. It feels like they want to have a smaller scale Amazon S3/EC2-like service, smaller scale dropbox-like service or smaller box-like service that is completely contained in a building or a region that is isolated from the Internet. It just runs in its own private world.  The Cloud word is no longer synonym to the Internet. It is synonym to the public cloud applications we are seeing, such as the ability to access files over the web browser; such as the ability to start a virtual machine from a web browser; such as the ability to view documents over iPhone and Android devices and so on. Now private cloud means you want to do all that in a  private environment. We are seeing r...