Storage Made Easy Blog

As part of the platform update I blogged about in the last post we have have released a new HTML5 App for BlackBerry Playbook, that is optimised for webkit browsers.

It is able to access, unify, and manage clouds from over 35 Cloud Storage and SaaS services. It supports upload, where webkit browsers enable access to the file system, such as the Playbook and the Android, and it supports url generation for files, managed file sharing by expiry, as well as cross cloud search.

We also put together a short video to demonstrate how it works.





The Mobile App can be found at http://smestorage.com/mobile

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The latest version of iAnnotate PDF, the iPad App that enables editing of PDF Documents, adds support for WebDav which means that you can use the SMEStorage ClouDav Protocol Adaptor, free with the iOS iSMEStorage App, to connect iAnnotate to many Clouds that it does not natively support. SMEStorage supports integration with more Storage and SaaS Clouds than any other service.

The steps to enable access to the Clouds mapped to your SMEStorage Account are simple:

CloudDav is enabled with all Business Cloud File Server Accounts.

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In the past we have written about Amazon S3 and how, aas the 100 pound gorilla, of the Cloud Storage world, it’s S3 API has become almost a de facto interface for developers. This is one of the reasons that we originally added an S3 API protocol adaptor to our service.

Many start up’s, small businesses and even enterprises choose initially to use S3 for storage.  This can be fine initially, however, when the volume increases the monthly bill can become an OPEX issue and small companies (and Enterprise) are looking for ways to slash their costs in any way they can. Aside from this other companies have stringent issues about where data is stored (for clarification, Amazon S3 is PCI DSS 2.0 compliant,   SAS 70 Type II certified, and VPV ISO 27001 certified) or wish to store it within their own data centre or site.

As SMEStorage supports over 35 Clouds and SaaS services, you could very easily turn Google Docs, Box, Windows Azure or DropBox into an S3 Platform, or you could just add your own NetGear or PogoPlug appliance, or other private storage implementation.

The SME hosted service, and Cloud Appliance,  provides the ability access to any Saas or cloud storage mapped to your account via multiple protocols. These include  FTP, WebDav and also S3. These work even if the backend provider does not support the protocol natively. The SME protocol adaptors will do the protocol translation to the native storage provider protocol. One of the benefits of this that the users don’t need any special software to be able to access the Clouds. They can use any FTP, or WebDav client, or in the case of S3 any S3 client or code in which the host endpoint can be changed.

To demonstrate compatibility with the S3 API and tools we will now look at how to use AWS s3curl with a smestorage account.

To use s3 curl you will need to modify s3curl.pl and change the end point to

‘s3.smetorage.com’ (US Server) or ’s3eu.smestorage.com‘ (EU Server) e.g my @endpoints = ( ‘s3.smestorage.com‘);

Your id is your smestorage account user name and you can obtain your secret key by logging into SMEStorage.com going to “My  Dashboard” (from the sidebar) and copying the API key from  the“Tech Info”  section where the “API secret Key” resides.

Now you are all set to use s3curl. For example to list all the buckets you can use

./s3curl.pl –id smestorageusername –key API secret key http://s3.smestorage.com

For s3curl command line options please see the README file that is part of the s3curl package. Also note that the secure way to use s3curl is to use the .s3curl file in your home directory to pass the id and and key.

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Given the propensity for so many different use cases that using the Cloud with Files can come up with  we thought we’d start sharing some of the day-to-day use cases we deal with here on our blog.

This one is an inbound request in which a business has a series of PDF’s stored in a folder hierarchy on SkyDrive that they need to share with a distributed team that uses a combination of Galaxy Tab and iPad’s. The files need to be synchronised for offline use and the files can be updated each evening so the remote people need to be able to resync the files locally to get the latest versions for offline use.

Firstly lets address SlyDrive. In this event all the business needs to is to start using our Cloud File Server and add the SkyDrive Cloud to their account from the Cloud DashBoard.  This starts a wizard in which the user is stepped through adding the SkyDrive Cloud.

Once this is done the Business Admin of the Cloud File Server needs to convert the  folder containing the PDF’s into a shared Organization Folder. This means that any users that are added to the Cloud File Server will be able to see this folder.

The Business Cloud Admin can now choose to set the types of permissions that they wish to set on the folder (read only, etc).

Once this is done The Cloud Admin can add the users:

Now this is setup lets move to the tablet side. We’ll take the iPad first:

IPAD:

Each of the users that the Cloud File Server Admin added to the Cloud File Server can access their account using the iSMEStorage iPad App. once logged in they will be able to view files on the Cloud in a unique Cloud Files view.

However as per the business requirements we need to be able to sync the folder that was shared containing PDF’s down to the device. To do this the user needs to visit that particular folder in the Cloud File Manager and nominate the folder for local sync.

Once this is done the user can go to ‘My Syncs’ from the menu and action a sync which will download all the PDF’s locally. In future as the documents are updated overnight he just needs to visit My Syncs again and choose to resync which will download the newest files.

Galaxy Tab:

As with the iPad the user needs to visit the PDF directory from the Cloud Files view and nominate the PDF folder for Sync in the SMEStorage Android App.

Once this is done the user can return to My syncs, click on the directory and choose to sync. This will download the relevant PDF’s to the iPad. Again a sync can be done each day to update the latest files.

As there is less restriction on Android devices users can set the App to do a scheduled sync daily. Unfortunately this is not currently possible on the iPad.

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We’ve updated our Linux Cloud Tools to version 3.06. The main changes are:

1. Fixed issue with CPU loading
2. Added support for Ubuntu 11.04
3. Added support for EU Server

Remember that the Tools are free for no business use and compose a Cloud Drive, Sync Tooling and a graphical Cloud File manager.

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The SMEStorage Multi Cloud WordPress plugin has been updated to version 1.8.

The Plugin enables a WordPress site with tables and content to be backed up to any of over 30 Storage Clouds now supported by the SMEStorage Open Cloud Platform.

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The SMEStorage Cloud File Manager for Windows Phone 7 has been approved and is now available on the Windows Marketplace. It has all the features you would expect from a SMEStorage client, including:

- Ability to aggregate Clouds into a virtual Cloud File System to be manage from Your Windows 7 Phone

- Clouds supported: Amazon S3, Amazon Cloud Drive, Google Docs, Google Storage, Google Sites, RackSpace Cloud Files, OpenStack, OpenS3 (S3 compatible Clouds), Box.net, Zimbra Briefcase, Mezeo, CloudMe, DropBox, Live Mesh 2011, Azure Blob Storage, GMail, Email-as-a-Cloud, WebDav and FTP Clouds.

- Ability to take and sync text and voice memos back to your chosen default cloud

- Ability to sync files from the Cloud to the local Phone file system

- Ability to work with local offline files

- Ability to share Cloud File over email and obtain URL’s and also to be able to add files to the Cloud Clipboard and share these files over multiple links in one email.

- Ability to create Business Groups for content sharing. Share a file with the Group and all Group members will receive the file. Update a file and all group members receive an update

- Sync Pictures with your local Photos

- Ability to view Cloud Files using Google Viewer

- Ability to edit Office files on the Cloud using Zoho Office

There are many other features many of which you will know if you have used SMEStorage previously.

We’ll post a video at some point but for now please find some screenshots below:

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The latest version of the iSMEStorage Cloud File Manager for iPhone / iPad is now in the App Store. There are a host of new features including a re-designed workflow for easier Cloud Files (and local flies) interactions, a new PDF component that supports large PDF files, and support for OpenStack and Google Sites Clouds.

The below presentation showcases the Cloud File Manager for the iPad:

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We’ve updated our Linux Cloud Tools and now include a graphical Cloud File Manager to compliment the existing Cloud Drive, and Cloud Synchronisation application. The tools are now very fully featured and work across various distributions of Linux including, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Redhat, CentOS, and SUSE.

The Linux Cloud Tools will work with any free account and enabled you to manage any combination of Cloud Storage Providers that you have mapped to your SMEStorage Account.

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