Storage is always an issue. Whether you’ve got petabytes of it on your mainframe or just 16GB on your smartphone or tablet, the issues are always the same. You want speedy access to the data you’re using, and you want somewhere to store the data you’re not using at the moment – but might want to use it later.
Speeding access to data can be helped in a number of ways – storing the data contiguously, using indexes to speed up access to individual fields, using shorter paths from the storage medium to the processor, keeping recently used data in cache storage in the likelihood it will be used again. Human ingenuity has come up with lots of workarounds to ensure that you get the data as quickly as possible.
But there’s more of an issue with archived data. I could have immediate access to it, but then it would cost as much to store as live data. I could store it on some cheap medium and find it takes a week to get it back to a state that I can use. And something along those lines is used by many archiving organizations. Those tapes are stored inside a mountain somewhere, and the data can be restored – but not quickly.
Depending on the kind of business you’re in, someone has made a decision about costs and storage retrieval speed. If your company is in banking or insurance, that data might get back much faster than if your organization doesn’t promise its customers fast access to old data.
The advent of cloud computing added another layer of complexity to storage. You could store your data on the cloud – which, in psychology terms, is called a nominalization. You call it something, which seems to have meaning, but isn’t a concrete real thing – you can’t put it in a wheel barrow. You hear politicians use nominalizations all the time. I’ll vote for prosperity and world peace – but what does that actually mean? Prosperity for someone from a third world country might seem quite close to poverty to me! And world peace can always be achieved by having a tank on everyone’s lawn. Your idea of what is meant by a nominalization may be completely different from the idea held by the next person!
Anyway, I digress. So nowadays, you can store your data on the cloud. You don’t know where it’s physically stored you just know how to access it. And I assume much the same models are used for the price of cloud storage – fast access is dearer than slow access. Amazon came up with, what they call, Amazon Glacier. This is a cheap service for archived or backed up data that you don’t access very often. In line with that pricing model, retrieval can take several hours. Amazon Glacier only charges organizations for the storage space they use.
I’ve been using a Pogoplug for over two years and I’ve mentioned it in this blog a few times. A Pogoplug started life as a small device that plugged into your router and allowed you to plug in memory sticks that you could access from a browser anywhere. The company has recently expanded its cloud offerings and has done a deal with Amazon to offer cloud storage at a very competitive rate. The solution isn’t for mainframers, but makes sense for individuals and small companies.
The Pogoplug Web site at http://pogoplug.com gives all the price plans they’re offering. So, a small organization would be able to back up files from their computers, smartphones, and tablets to one secure location. All the company has to do is buy a Pogoplug device or download the Pogoplug Server software and run it on a Windows or Mac. They can then back-up and archive their files – and we’re talking terabytes of space. Users can continuously copy all or part of their data to Pogoplug’s secure offsite cloud. Any changes they make to their original folder will be synchronized automatically.
It seems like a useful addition to the all-important back-up and restore choices a company has to make.
Showing posts with label Pogoplug. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pogoplug. Show all posts
Sunday, 9 September 2012
Sunday, 22 April 2012
Cloud wars
There was a time when mainframers simply claimed that they’d been using the cloud computing paradigm all along. Then IBM came up with SmartCloud, its vision for cloud computing, offering SmartCloud services and SmartCloud solutions. Last week saw the announcement of the PureSystems private cloud packages. But for non-mainframe users or non-IBM technology users, the clouds are getting darker!
Now, I’ve been using a Pogoplug as cloud resource for a couple of years now. Next to my router, I have a small Pogoplug box. And attached to that box are a number of big memory sticks with files that I want available wherever I am. I can upload and download the files to any computer and I have the app on my phone and tablet – it’s all very convenient.
But for people who don’t have a Pogoplug, there’s been Microsoft’s Skydrive offering online storage space to (originally) people with an MSN account. It’s handy to keep a copy of your files in the cloud and then access them when you go somewhere else. It also allows file sharing. But you may get irritated by the need to download Silverlight.
And that’s the area where Dropbox is such a success. It allows users to share folders with other people and those folders can contain very large documents. Dropbox, in many ways ,became the de facto standard – everyone had heard of Dropbox. And now, BitTorrent lhas aunched Share, which is its equivalent – and is perhaps aimed at younger people who might be more familiar with using BitTorrent offerings.
The problem with Dropbox and the other similar providers is that any self-respecting IT department is going to have to stop its staff using them. Now sharing a photo of my new grandson is one thing, sharing a business-sensitive policy document on the cloud is something else. Who knows what organizations at some time in the future may have access to those cloud-based files? Internal IT security can no more allow staff to use cloud solutions for sharing files than it can allow staff to carry around unencrypted memory sticks.
There are some sites where you can upload your files anonymously, although you get a slow connection. You can open a free account, which gets you a slightly faster connection, or there’s the paid for service with the fastest connection. Once a file is uploaded, you get a URL that you can share, and then people can download your file. Examples include FileDropper (up to 5GB), FileFactory (upload up to 50 2GB files), FileServe (up to 500GB with an account), and HotFile (you pay when your files are downloaded).
Some organizations have limits on the size of files that can be sent as attachments or received as attachments. That’s why some of these other Web cloud hosts have sprung up. People like: Bigupload (up to 50MB), Box.net (1GB of storage, but the maximum file size is 25MB), Crocko (up to 1GB), DriveHQ (1GB ), Humyo (10GB), Kontainer file storage (50MB), MediaFire (up to 100MB, MegaSWF (Flash SWF files up to 10MB), RapidShare (up to 200MB), ShareBase (up to 200MB), Sigmirror (5GB of free storage), TzFiles (2GB), and uploaded.to (250MB file size maximum).
And there are many other hosting sites that I haven’t mentioned. And many that charge varying amounts for storage.
Up to now, Google, has offered Google Docs as a cloud solution. You could create your Word files and, assuming you had the Google Docs plug-in, store a copy in the cloud. Or you could just create documents using Google Docs and share them.
But now, it appears that Google is going to launch Google Drive – 5GB of free storage available to all users. Users will get a Google Drive icon on their desktop and use it as a virtual drive. And 5GB is quite a lot of storage – although arch-rival Amazon’s Cloud Drive offers exactly the same free.
Bitcasa, which is still in beta, is offering free storage while it’s in beta and paid for unlimited storage afterwards.
With the growth in cloud storage, more IT departments will have to get involved in making sure that there is some way that business-related data can be kept secure in the cloud. And with Google joining the growing cloud space race, end users are going expect cloud storage to be available to them.
Now, I’ve been using a Pogoplug as cloud resource for a couple of years now. Next to my router, I have a small Pogoplug box. And attached to that box are a number of big memory sticks with files that I want available wherever I am. I can upload and download the files to any computer and I have the app on my phone and tablet – it’s all very convenient.
But for people who don’t have a Pogoplug, there’s been Microsoft’s Skydrive offering online storage space to (originally) people with an MSN account. It’s handy to keep a copy of your files in the cloud and then access them when you go somewhere else. It also allows file sharing. But you may get irritated by the need to download Silverlight.
And that’s the area where Dropbox is such a success. It allows users to share folders with other people and those folders can contain very large documents. Dropbox, in many ways ,became the de facto standard – everyone had heard of Dropbox. And now, BitTorrent lhas aunched Share, which is its equivalent – and is perhaps aimed at younger people who might be more familiar with using BitTorrent offerings.
The problem with Dropbox and the other similar providers is that any self-respecting IT department is going to have to stop its staff using them. Now sharing a photo of my new grandson is one thing, sharing a business-sensitive policy document on the cloud is something else. Who knows what organizations at some time in the future may have access to those cloud-based files? Internal IT security can no more allow staff to use cloud solutions for sharing files than it can allow staff to carry around unencrypted memory sticks.
There are some sites where you can upload your files anonymously, although you get a slow connection. You can open a free account, which gets you a slightly faster connection, or there’s the paid for service with the fastest connection. Once a file is uploaded, you get a URL that you can share, and then people can download your file. Examples include FileDropper (up to 5GB), FileFactory (upload up to 50 2GB files), FileServe (up to 500GB with an account), and HotFile (you pay when your files are downloaded).
Some organizations have limits on the size of files that can be sent as attachments or received as attachments. That’s why some of these other Web cloud hosts have sprung up. People like: Bigupload (up to 50MB), Box.net (1GB of storage, but the maximum file size is 25MB), Crocko (up to 1GB), DriveHQ (1GB ), Humyo (10GB), Kontainer file storage (50MB), MediaFire (up to 100MB, MegaSWF (Flash SWF files up to 10MB), RapidShare (up to 200MB), ShareBase (up to 200MB), Sigmirror (5GB of free storage), TzFiles (2GB), and uploaded.to (250MB file size maximum).
And there are many other hosting sites that I haven’t mentioned. And many that charge varying amounts for storage.
Up to now, Google, has offered Google Docs as a cloud solution. You could create your Word files and, assuming you had the Google Docs plug-in, store a copy in the cloud. Or you could just create documents using Google Docs and share them.
But now, it appears that Google is going to launch Google Drive – 5GB of free storage available to all users. Users will get a Google Drive icon on their desktop and use it as a virtual drive. And 5GB is quite a lot of storage – although arch-rival Amazon’s Cloud Drive offers exactly the same free.
Bitcasa, which is still in beta, is offering free storage while it’s in beta and paid for unlimited storage afterwards.
With the growth in cloud storage, more IT departments will have to get involved in making sure that there is some way that business-related data can be kept secure in the cloud. And with Google joining the growing cloud space race, end users are going expect cloud storage to be available to them.
Monday, 6 June 2011
Cloudy but good
All this talk about 2011 being the year of the cloud rings true. I say that because marketing hype is usually a bit ahead of the curve. But I realize that I’m using cloud computing a lot these days – and I don’t mean (necessarily) for work.
Firstly, I’m using Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. This is a small piece of code that’s free to download from http://tools.google.com/dlpage/cloudconnect. Once installed, you can save all your Word etc files on your laptop AND there’s a copy in Google Docs. Now, the reason I find that so useful is not simply because I know my documents are backed up (and to be honest that’s a really important reason and the one that I’d use as a selling point to most people), but it also means that I can access the documents from other computers. I have two laptops that I use all the time, and a third one, that’s usually away at users’ sites. I can now access my documents wherever I am and not have to say that I’ll send on the information after the meeting (or whatever).
Google also say on their site that this system allows users to simultaneously edit their files – which again is a great idea, although it’s not something I’ve tried.
Previously to using Google Cloud Connect, I used my Pogoplug for the same reason. I’ve mentioned Pogoplugs before in these blogs because they are so useful. It provides my own personal cloud. A Pogoplug is a little piece of kit that connects to your router. I then have four or five memory sticks plugged into it, but I could have a 2TB external hard drive. I can upload files to the Pogoplug from anywhere using a simple browser interface (https://my.pogoplug.com/) and I can share files with people, so they can see photos I’ve taken or short videos, or even Office documents. And, again, it provides me with a back-up copy of my important files.
The third piece of cloud computing I use is Wyse PocketCloud. I’ve downloaded the free app for my Android smartphone and I’ve downloaded the software for my laptop. Once they’re password synchronized, I can control my laptop from my phone. Which means, if I haven’t got a document with me, I can use my phone to launch Word on my PC and read the document. Last week I sent a document from someone else’s computer to my e-mail address. I used the PocketCloud software to log-on to my e-mail, download the file and print it. So when I returned back to base, there was the document ready for me to take to the next meeting (a school governors meeting – they don’t have wifi, hence I couldn’t be paperless). I’ve sat in McDonalds and called up files! It is a really impressive piece of software. Now, with the other cloud facilities mentioned above, I don’t know how much I’ll need to use it. But it just seems so amazing to be able to do it!
What I’m suggesting is that cloud computing is getting in under the radar and people are beginning to use it already. So, when IT departments suggest rolling out Cloud services in whatever form that takes for them, they will be pushing at an open door. There won’t be usual user resistance because the users will be perfectly happy with the concept. And, of course, mainframers will be saying that they’ve been using these cloud concepts since the 1960s – or whenever they first started working with mainframes.
Which all goes to show that 2011 really is the year of the cloud.
Firstly, I’m using Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. This is a small piece of code that’s free to download from http://tools.google.com/dlpage/cloudconnect. Once installed, you can save all your Word etc files on your laptop AND there’s a copy in Google Docs. Now, the reason I find that so useful is not simply because I know my documents are backed up (and to be honest that’s a really important reason and the one that I’d use as a selling point to most people), but it also means that I can access the documents from other computers. I have two laptops that I use all the time, and a third one, that’s usually away at users’ sites. I can now access my documents wherever I am and not have to say that I’ll send on the information after the meeting (or whatever).
Google also say on their site that this system allows users to simultaneously edit their files – which again is a great idea, although it’s not something I’ve tried.
Previously to using Google Cloud Connect, I used my Pogoplug for the same reason. I’ve mentioned Pogoplugs before in these blogs because they are so useful. It provides my own personal cloud. A Pogoplug is a little piece of kit that connects to your router. I then have four or five memory sticks plugged into it, but I could have a 2TB external hard drive. I can upload files to the Pogoplug from anywhere using a simple browser interface (https://my.pogoplug.com/) and I can share files with people, so they can see photos I’ve taken or short videos, or even Office documents. And, again, it provides me with a back-up copy of my important files.
The third piece of cloud computing I use is Wyse PocketCloud. I’ve downloaded the free app for my Android smartphone and I’ve downloaded the software for my laptop. Once they’re password synchronized, I can control my laptop from my phone. Which means, if I haven’t got a document with me, I can use my phone to launch Word on my PC and read the document. Last week I sent a document from someone else’s computer to my e-mail address. I used the PocketCloud software to log-on to my e-mail, download the file and print it. So when I returned back to base, there was the document ready for me to take to the next meeting (a school governors meeting – they don’t have wifi, hence I couldn’t be paperless). I’ve sat in McDonalds and called up files! It is a really impressive piece of software. Now, with the other cloud facilities mentioned above, I don’t know how much I’ll need to use it. But it just seems so amazing to be able to do it!
What I’m suggesting is that cloud computing is getting in under the radar and people are beginning to use it already. So, when IT departments suggest rolling out Cloud services in whatever form that takes for them, they will be pushing at an open door. There won’t be usual user resistance because the users will be perfectly happy with the concept. And, of course, mainframers will be saying that they’ve been using these cloud concepts since the 1960s – or whenever they first started working with mainframes.
Which all goes to show that 2011 really is the year of the cloud.
Monday, 31 May 2010
My personal cloud – Pogoplug reviewed
There are plenty of sites – like Facebook – that allow you to upload last night’s pictures and videos, but there’s always a problem with security. You hope that Facebook etc back-up their servers and archive the older stuff, so that, should they lose their main data disks, they can restore them. But that leads to another problem. That incredibly funny photo that we uploaded last year, might now be considered – even by us – to be in bad taste, and we don’t want copies of it lingering somewhere out there on almost completely-forgotten storage media. What if you could have full control over what you’re sharing and who can see it? What if you can add or delete files whenever you decide? Enter the perfect cloud storage system – the Pogoplug.
The Pogoplug simply connects to your router and allows memory sticks and external hard drives to be plugged into it. You can download an application that allows you to treat these storage devices as if they were connected to your laptop and then copy photos, videos, and music to them and make those photos, videos, and music tracks available across the Internet.
You can see a picture of a pink and white Pogoplug at www.pogoplug.com/. Let me tell you about setting it up. You plug one cable into the mains, and the other cable is a LAN cable that goes from the Pogoplug to a suitable connection socket in your router. You then connect a memory stick or whatever into one of the available sockets at the back (or there is one at the front). The light at the front of the Pogoplug goes green and you’re good to go.
Back on your computer you need to register on the my.pogoplug.com site. You can then use your browser to talk to the memory stick. I found it easier to download the free software that makes the Pogoplug appear to be an extra hard drive. It was just very easy to create directories and organize files. With so many slots on the Pogoplug you could plug in four 1TB external drives. That would be an enormous number of files you could share.
I can access my files on the Pogoplug whenever I want from wherever I want by logging into my.pogoplug.com and entering my e-mail address and password. I can add files, create directories, create slideshows, and share files or directories. I can also see files that other people have shared with me!
Looking at photos, for example from here, I can enlarge them, download them, delete them, or share them – all by clicking on an icon. If I want to share with one person or a few chosen people, I can enter their e-mail address in the box and invite them to share the file. I can even send them a personalized note with the link.
There is an alternative option. On the other sharing tab, called “more sharing options”, it’s possible to publish to Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. You can also publish as an RSS feed and enable public viewing. This gives you a very long URL. I ran it through Tiny URL and sent that as a text message to a friend. But, it is simple enough to cut-and-paste the URL into an e-mail or even into a blog.
There is a feature that automatically copies photos, videos, music etc from my laptop to the Pogoplug. This software automatically synchronizes these folders whenever I’m connected, which means I’ve always got a back-up copy. This, of course, only works provided I have enough storage on the Pogoplug to handle the number of photos and amount of music and videos I have stored!
There’s apparently an iPhone app – hopefully there will be an Android one too soon.
Is it any good? Why is it cloud computing? It’s very easy to use and it’s useful to easily access photos particularly over the Internet. And that’s why it’s cloud computing – because you create a Web server and FTP files to it without needing to understand anything about these topics. It does make the area around your router look like a mini IT suite if you plug in external hard drives that require their own power supplies, but a couple of memory sticks don’t look too intrusive. But then, you’re restricted to how much you can store.
I thought it was great fun – and well worth having a look at.
The Pogoplug simply connects to your router and allows memory sticks and external hard drives to be plugged into it. You can download an application that allows you to treat these storage devices as if they were connected to your laptop and then copy photos, videos, and music to them and make those photos, videos, and music tracks available across the Internet.
You can see a picture of a pink and white Pogoplug at www.pogoplug.com/. Let me tell you about setting it up. You plug one cable into the mains, and the other cable is a LAN cable that goes from the Pogoplug to a suitable connection socket in your router. You then connect a memory stick or whatever into one of the available sockets at the back (or there is one at the front). The light at the front of the Pogoplug goes green and you’re good to go.
Back on your computer you need to register on the my.pogoplug.com site. You can then use your browser to talk to the memory stick. I found it easier to download the free software that makes the Pogoplug appear to be an extra hard drive. It was just very easy to create directories and organize files. With so many slots on the Pogoplug you could plug in four 1TB external drives. That would be an enormous number of files you could share.
I can access my files on the Pogoplug whenever I want from wherever I want by logging into my.pogoplug.com and entering my e-mail address and password. I can add files, create directories, create slideshows, and share files or directories. I can also see files that other people have shared with me!
Looking at photos, for example from here, I can enlarge them, download them, delete them, or share them – all by clicking on an icon. If I want to share with one person or a few chosen people, I can enter their e-mail address in the box and invite them to share the file. I can even send them a personalized note with the link.
There is an alternative option. On the other sharing tab, called “more sharing options”, it’s possible to publish to Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. You can also publish as an RSS feed and enable public viewing. This gives you a very long URL. I ran it through Tiny URL and sent that as a text message to a friend. But, it is simple enough to cut-and-paste the URL into an e-mail or even into a blog.
There is a feature that automatically copies photos, videos, music etc from my laptop to the Pogoplug. This software automatically synchronizes these folders whenever I’m connected, which means I’ve always got a back-up copy. This, of course, only works provided I have enough storage on the Pogoplug to handle the number of photos and amount of music and videos I have stored!
There’s apparently an iPhone app – hopefully there will be an Android one too soon.
Is it any good? Why is it cloud computing? It’s very easy to use and it’s useful to easily access photos particularly over the Internet. And that’s why it’s cloud computing – because you create a Web server and FTP files to it without needing to understand anything about these topics. It does make the area around your router look like a mini IT suite if you plug in external hard drives that require their own power supplies, but a couple of memory sticks don’t look too intrusive. But then, you’re restricted to how much you can store.
I thought it was great fun – and well worth having a look at.
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