Business News Holding

Category: storage

New Bitcasa CloudFS Platform Released

Cloud storage provider Bitcasa has recently announced the introduction of Bitcasa CloudFS. The new platform enables developers to have control over user data, making it possible to create applications that make use of Bitcasa’s secure and scalable cloud infrastructure.

The platform also features the Bitcasa CloudFS API that enables developers to seamlessly incorporate the Bitcasa platform with other third party applications.

In November last year, the Programmable Web reported the launching of a unique developer program by Bitcasa and that it had introduced the Bitcasa API. Later on in May this year, the company then announced that there was limited availability of Bitcasa CloudFS platform and just last month the company announced the open Beta launch of the new Bitcasa CloudFS APIs.

Bitcasa CloudFS platform is different from other cloud storage platforms in that everything that is uploaded to Bitcasa is first encrypted on the user’s machine before it is transferred to Bitcasa’s servers.

In addition, anything uploaded and stored in it cannot be identified as it does not retain the names of the files and neither can the content of the files uploaded be seen.

Bitcasa CEO Brian Taptich told Programmable Web that by August this year, over 7,000 Bitcasa CloudFS accounts had been opened. He also said that a wide range of apps have been incorporated in the revamped platform.

Taptich also confirmed that that the company is regionalizing the data storage to make it possible for uploaded files to be stored in the same region or country as the device used to upload them. For instance, if a Bitcasa user uploads a file while in the US; it would be stored in a server situated in the US.

Bitcasa is also planning on coming up with more specific enterprise features like LDAP Integration and Active Directory.

November 3, 2014
VMware Discloses Hybrid Cloud Service

VMware continues its expansion of hybrid cloud platform currently available in over 75% of the global cloud market.The company has revealed the capabilities of the new hybrid cloud service together with the third party mobile app services, whose design “seeks to allow application and enterprise developers to easily support the changing needs of contemporary businesses.”

Currently, many businesses look up to the contemporary mobile apps in order to drive loyalty, differentiation, and revenue. This is according to the general manager and executive vice president of the Hybrid Cloud Service VMware, Business unit, Bill Fathers.

Bill further added that VMware is continuing with its pace of their cloud expansion with the aim of making their vCloud Air the leading hybrid cloud platform in the industry for deploying, building, scaling, and operating the more recent mobile-cloud applications.

It has only been a year since the introduction of VMware vCloud Air and the hybrid’s cloud platform has swiftly stretched their global footprint and now provides Asia-Pacific, US, and the European business of different sizes with the most reliable path to cloud.

Currently, they boast of eight data centers in Japan, the US, and UK with an announcement that they will be expanding, through a SoftBank Telecom Corp joint venture, to the Asia-Pacific regions. VMware also publicized their strategic corporation with China Telecom in order to build a top notch hybrid cloud service in Beljing.

vCloud Air is anticipated to avail a wide range of pre-validated solutions offered by the different independent software (ISVs) vendors. These mobility specialists offer their clienteles with a selection of proven capabilities in order to meet a range of customer needs while keeping up with the rapidly dynamic mobile landscape.

The information director of the San Francisco Ballet, Murray Bognovitz, added that the disaster recovery service by VMware vCloud Air provides them with a dependable recovery services and a seamless connection which has helped them increase their resiliency even with minimum investments.

September 19, 2014
Amazon Makes Its Enterprise Cloud Storage Service Zocalo Available For All

Amazon recently announced that they are making their secure document sharing and storage enterprise service Zocalo available to all.

This news was released on the same day when Dropbox, their cloud storage competitor, announced increased storage and lower prices for their pro customers.

Zocalo last month sprung into a limited preview with very belligerent price points. An end user receives 200 GB in cloud storage for $5 per month per user. The user can then take advantage of the service to upload new versions, store all sorts of files, comment within and on files, and much more, from any device including Macs, PCs, and other iOS and Android powered devices.

In the meantime, Zocalo is being managed by IT admins who are integrating the service with surviving corporate directories like the Active directory, allowing the users to first sign in with their surviving Active Directory authorizations.

In a recent blogpost, Amazon confirmed that the Zocalo service is now available to all their AWS customers including a free trial period of 30 days.

Even though Zocalo is designed for the enterprise crowd, most of whom are on-premise solutions and still paying for legacy, to some extent, it is a competitor of other consumer-first services including Dropbox, which is not is not aiming to stretch further into the expert business markets, where it is in tough competition with other cloud storage rivals, including Google Drive and Box.

Zocalo is not Amazon’s first cloud storage service: the company also offers consumer grade service like Amazon Cloud Drive, whose greatest advantage is its assimilation with Amazon’s Fire phone.

September 16, 2014
Microsoft Ups Storage 5,000% to 1 TB for Each Office 365 User

Microsoft bumped up its cloud storage increasing it from 20 GB to 1 TB for every Office 365 user. It also increased its Microsoft OneDrive from 7 GB to 15 GB. According to Microsoft’s data, out of every four people, three have storage of less than 15 GB on their PC.

This storage boost has put Microsoft in the forefront when compared to Google and Dropbox, as far as free allocation goes. The Free Dropbox accounts get a sparing 2GB, even though it may be expanded through signing up friends. While Google may offer 15 GB free cloud storage, it includes Gmail, Drive and Photos.

In addition, Microsoft has also lowered the price of purchasing additional storage to$2 per month from the previous cost of $7.50 per month for 100 GB.

Office 365 storage

So if you are thinking of getting more than an extra 100 GB, you will be better of switching to an Office 365 account, as all Office 365 account holders get storage increase to 1TB.

A personal Office 365 subscription costs $6.99 per month and comes with 1 TB for every user while the Home Office 365 subscription costs up to $9.99 monthly and comes with approximately five 1TB OneDrive allocations.

An earlier announcement by Microsoft also revealed that OneDrive for Business clients as well as university students also get a boost to 1 TB.

All the changes are expected to be effected this month, according to Microsoft.

July 17, 2014
Google Drive for Work Takes on Dropbox with Unlimited Storage for $10 Monthly

For the first time ever, an unlimited storage has been offered by a cloud file storage service at entry level prices. Google has released the much anticipated Google Drive for Work which presents unlimited storage for as little as US$10 monthly. Since a Google Drive for Work account with less than five users is limited to 1TB storage as per user, it means that a business may spend up to $50.

The incorporation of Quickoffice into the newly launched Drive grants a user the ability to not only open a Microsoft document, but also make changes to it in its innate format is a major drawcard. These also applies to Power Point and Excel files both in Chrome browser and Android mobile devices on a laptop or desktop computer.

Google is making plans to extend this ability to iOS devices soon.

Two years after its introduction to the market, Google Drive has managed to get more than 190 million users globally.

Google Drive for Work has given more security settings and control to businesses which would like to know who shares files and how. The service gives businesses a chance to share up to 5TB in files for the public to download, comment, edit or simply view.

Google Drive’s compatibility with over and above 40 file formats allows for previewing of PDFs, Microsoft Office documents, videos, images and spreadsheets without the need for extra software.

Another notable alteration to the consumer Google Drive is the full support and stronger security. All files are encrypted when being transferred to the Drive’s cloud data center from the user’s computer and remain encrypted while in storage and even when transferred to any mobile device.

July 14, 2014
Apple introduces iCloud Drive

At the WWDC 2014 Apple has introduced iCloud Drive that will be available this fall with the newly announced iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

What does iCloud Drive bring to the table?

There are a lot of features and benefits that comes with the drive, but one that is really dominant is the freedom. With iCloud Drive you can access, edit, and safely store your data across all your devices. You can also edit one of your documents and the changes reflect on all other devices, including iOS devices, Mac and Windows.

iCloud Drive brings with it a next generation level of cooperation and collaboration between apps, enhancing the ability to work, edit, and access the same file across multiple apps and devices.

How to Store

The storage process of any file/document is as easy as promised. To upload, you just have to drag your item/s to your drive on your Mac, PC or any iOS powered device. You can also start a new document on any of the iCloud-enabled apps and they will be stored on your drive.

With iCloud Drive, you can also open/start working on a document on one app and finish it on another. For instance, if you are creating a picture, you can start it on a sketching app and move it for painting on a paint app and so on.

June 4, 2014
Microsoft to Introduce OneDrive Music Locker for Xbox Music

Microsoft might soon introduce a cloud storage service for Xbox Music. According to LiveSino, the OneDrive Music Locker will allow users to upload music to OneDrive, which will then be streamed to Xbox Music on different devices.

(more…)

May 21, 2014
Dell and Dropbox Partner on a Business Cloud Storage Push

Hardware giant Dell has formed a partnership with cloud storage provider Dropbox to sell the business focused cloud storage product through its sales network. The deal aims at helping businesses "meet today’s employee’s expectations for cloud based services."

Dell will bundle Dropbox’s corporate offering, Dropbox for business with its data protection cloud proposition. According to the company, the move will ensure that the IT Company meets regulatory requirements and also maintain control over sharing.

Brett Hansen, the executive director of end user computing software at Dell noted that Dropbox was one of the fastest growing, most innovative and most popular solution of its kind. He further noted that through the Dell global ales team, both companies can help organizations of different sizes protect data while embracing consumerisation of IT.

Global vice president of partnerships at Dropbox, Marc Leibowitz added that Dropbox has always focused in providing a simple and elegant way of accessing their most important stuff. He also noted that Dell offers scalable, innovative and back-end expertise that help to empower IT administrators as well as the end users. The shared values of manageability, simplicity and security make Dell an ideal strategic partner.

Dell and Dropbox indicated that they will be announcing the developments across Dell’s commercial and consumer client platforms in the coming months. However, they did not expound on when the changes are likely to appear.

Image: TechMalaysia

May 5, 2014
It’s The End of the Road for AVG LiveKive Cloud Storage Service

LiveKive users have been notified of the eminent closure of AVG’s cloud storage service just weeks after Crossloop remote access service was ended by the AV vendor.

2011 saw the launch of AVG LiveKive which provided sync n share services to its customers. What made the service unique was the unlimited package that had an annual fee of $80 and 30 day trial which offered free 5 GB storage space.

The AVG forum had a post announcing that AVG LiveKive would soon be facing discontinuation which was a clear indication that the goodies the service came with did not do much in making the product profitable.

The post communicated to its members that AVG would be terminating the service in two stages so that everybody gets time to back up their stuff.

Uploading of new files will be terminated on April 1st 2014 but downloads will continue for the following 90 days until August 18th which will see the complete shutdown of the service.

From this date, users will not be able to get access to any data from AVG LiveKive so everyone is advised to do their backup before this day.

Subscribers to other AVG services are assured that the only change they will feel is that of the termination of AVG LiveKive so all other services will continue to run as usual.

AVG had followed many other companies in the sync ‘n’ share venture even though it is considered a minor service. Some similar services include; the Dropbox clone Cubby from LogMein, Ubuntu One from Ubuntu, Copy from Barracuda Networks, and Mozy and Simplicity from EMC. EMC is spicing up its service with some collaboration and workflow elements in an effort to make more unique.

April 30, 2014
Loaded and locked – 3 seriously secure cloud storage services

Some of the popular, efficient and convenient cloud storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox, and SugarSync can sometimes be insecure. Your files may be accessible to companies due to the lack of encryption and unprotected data transfers. Before uploading sensitive files to the large storage services you can use smaller, more secure cloud storage services like Wuala and Tresorit to encrypt the files. Alternatively, you can encrypt the files yourself.

Wuala

Wuala is compatible with Linux, iOS, Windows, and Android operating systems. Its first 5GB storage space is free and its packages cost starts from $4 per month for 20GB storage space.

LaCie is the company behind the Wuala cloud storage company, and it offers unique services in two ways;
Encryption of files by clients: you are in charge of your file encryption on your device prior to uploading it it the cloud. This ensures that only you can gain access to the uploaded data, making data transfer extremely secure.

Password confidentiality: You are the only person who has access to your password and not even Wuala employees are able to know it. This means that forgetting your password would give you a very nasty experience trying to access your files.

Tresorit

Tresorit is compatible with Mac OS X, Widows, iOS, and Android operating systems. 5GB is free and its package price starts at $7 per month for 100GB of storage space.

Tresorit provides secure data transfers and data centers able to protect data against data invasion as well as client side encryption.

Tresorit’s client side data encryption is similar to that of Wuala in terms of confidential password protection. A differentiating feature is the ability to secure any folder on your device by just ‘tresor-ing’ it. This means that you can right click on any folder and secure it.

McAfee personal locker

This cloud storage service is compatible with Android, Windows 8, and iOS operating systems. All McAfee LiveSafe subscribers get 1 GB free storage space.

Its features include a PIN, face and voice recognition security measures, which you will have to go through to access high priority files. Low priority files only require a PIN to gain access.

Local File Encryption

Instead of going through the wearisome task of getting a new cloud storage service, applications like TrueCrypt will be useful in helping you encrypt your data inside your cloud folder. This will work well in keeping your files safe and secure.

April 17, 2014