Cloud Storage

Benihana

Benihana

Benihana

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Joined
16 May 2006
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1,414
Location
Copenhagen
Right, I work at a small startup and we are looking at opening a new office next year in another country. I have been asked to setup some file sharing between the two offices, something that gives us user management and folder restrictions.

We currently have a 2008R2 server acting as our intranet, which appears to work fine for the 30ish users in our current location (bar a Powerpoint SMB issue). The company currently has only iMac or MBP's for users and wants to keep it that way. The total amount of data is around 500GB and grows quite slowly.

They are very keen on moving most data into the cloud as its increasingly useful to be able to access documents anywhere and collaborate easily, however as with any startup budget is a major limitation.

I'm looking into VPN solutions and multiple other areas but would really appreciate any insights, if I have left anything out please let me know. Its highly likely this will be one of many remote offices, so scalability is useful!
 
We used Box.net for a while and switched to sharefile from Citrix earlier this year. Seems to do just about everything we need, giving permissions, logging of access and version etc. There are apps to manage sync'ing including server based sync and native iPad etc apps as well.
 
Looking at ShareFile it seems we would need the Corporate level account, at $100 I can't see them going for it. This is clearly the main issue, the budget just isn't there. Anything cheaper is aimed more at personal use, and lacks admin functionality. Seems like I'm between a rock and a hard place!

Box looked good, but like Dropbox, Drive, S3, Cubby, Sugarsync etc it has been dropped by the management. I'm currently looking into Windows Live Mesh, and having local servers at each location, however as I am pretty much the entire IT team, I don't think it would be the best idea from a maintenance perspective.
 
Depends, do you need to sync everything between the offices? Thats a $100 a month for the service not $100 a month per user.
 
I've been asked to look at syncing everything, but it will likely be the most commonly accessed files/folders and the rest will remain local. 20GB will likely not last long either, even though I think $100 is a bargain, I can see it being shot down.

We mainly use Google Apps for Business to handle Calendars, Contacts and Mail so we have no use for Exchange features. One suggestion I have been given is a Mac Mini in each location, but this seems like a headache for syncing...
 
True sync'ing becomes a monumental PITA if you have both sites editing files at the same time, you will end up with clashing changes etc and it'll become a mess very very quickly.

For what they want you need a collaborative system, and they all cost to get the features you want. Even somebody like Soonr who I've also used to get that sort of storage is going to costs you $300 a month.

2 Mac Minis will also cost over a £1,000 then you have all the aggravation of setting up and managing that as a solution, while keeping it secure and backed up etc.
 
Syncing is what I'm afraid of also, I can really seeing this being a huge headache if not done properly.

Apple hardware is on show and looks nice, but when it comes to what goes on in the background, the budget soon seems to disappear!

Appreciate your input so far J1nxy, I've considered some sort of NAS for each site to sync to on a daily basis complimented with a small cloud provider like Dropbox or Drive for the most commonly accessed/modified documents. Something with versioning/revision history at least.

Has anyone tried AeroFS, i'm wondering if its a possibility...
 
What sort of data are you handling and what sort of growth and churn does it have as that will dictate to a degree what solution will meet your requirements. I'd also question what level of collaboration the users need as I'd be surprised if its your full 500GB.
 
Thanks everyone for the suggestions so far, the data usually revolves around office documents, audio, video and graphic files. We use the free 2GB version of Dropbox currently for the most often accessed files, but we are constantly running out of space, with the addition of a new office and more staff I can only see this getting to be more of a problem.

We need something that is easy for users to use on a daily basis, like they do with DB, but offers the ability to expand storage easily, with admin features to control users and the available shares. The bulk of the data is currently served from a 2008R2 server with Active Directory.

I will look into the solutions posted above, but I think S3 was already ruled out though I think it is one of the best options, however finding a good client (from a users perspective) has been difficult.

Its hard to estimate the growth, but in 6 months it has grown about 25% and will likely be closer to 50% in the next 6 months. I haven't looked at the actual bandwidth yet.

Thanks again!
 
The problem with cloud solutions though is that if there isn't an Internet connection then you are screwed for your files. This would indeed require a local solution.

HP Micro Severs can be had for less than £200.00 but then will require an OS licence unless you opt for something free linux based. There's a lot out there these days.
 
I think they are a lot happier with the idea of one off costs, so a local server is not a terrible idea, its just that there is likely to be no-one technical on site for maintenance. The problem is keeping all the files up to date...
 
Have you thought about WAN accelerator devices?

Riverbed Steelhead devices have the option to cache CIFS fileshares as well as delivering impressive optimisation of traffic. The combination of the two might well turn out to be a viable solution if you wish to keep everything centralised for ease of management/backup.
 
Thanks for the additional suggestions, linux servers running GlusterFS would obviously be a fairly cheap option, any idea how it works with syncing files? Would it lock open files? What happens if the server goes offline, the LAN shares remain available on the client servers and then the server comes back up and does what?
 
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