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Tag: cloud-storage

  • Box and IBM Join Hands to Boost Analytics and Cloud Storage  

    Box and IBM Join Hands to Boost Analytics and Cloud Storage  

    Box-IBM

    Box and IBM have combined their cloud products as a way of boosting their appeal and scope. The partnership will bring together IBM security technologies and tools with Box’s cloud storage services, enabling the two companies to have a global reach offered by the IBM cloud.

    Aaron Levie, Box’s CEO said in a blog post that the partnership will help them target more public sector and enterprise customers, which he insists they cannot do alone. He further said: “We’re taking the best of Box’s technology and combining it with IBM’s impressive portfolio of leading security, analytics, content management and social capabilities to jointly create all-new offerings and outcomes for customers.”

    In this new partnership Box will have at their disposal IBM security technologies and enterprise-grade content management tools. The agreement also allows Box users to store data on the IBM Cloud.

    Meanwhile, IBM will be able to increase their Watson Analytics service scope by analyzing data and content stored in the Box platform.

    Both companies will provide consultancy to enterprises looking at using Box with their existing data and systems. They will also work together to create content management apps and integrate Box features into IBM’s MobileFirst for iOS apps.

    This is of course not the first time we are seeing Box entering into such partnerships as they already have a working relationship with Microsoft, a major IBM competitor in the cloud business.

  • Box partners with Microsoft to bring You Office Online document Creation and Editing

    Box partners with Microsoft to bring You Office Online document Creation and Editing

    Box for Office Online2

    Good news to Box users, as they can now create and edit Microsoft Office documents using Office Online without having to leave the cloud storage service. This new merger is part of the plan to expand Microsoft Cloud Storage Partner Program.

    According to Box’s David Still, there are already more than a billion Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files in Box and users can now use the recently announced service to create and even edit Office files all inside Box. Any changes you make to an Office Online document/file will automatically be saved on the cloud, so you do not have to worry about having to re-upload the files again to Box.

    In the press release, Box’s CEO Aaron Levie says that the new model for enterprise productivity depends on creating seamless, device agnostic connections between the core applications that people use to get work done. With over a billion users, Levie admits that the merger with Office is a crucial move in their growth and also in the transformation of the way people work and do business.

    The new announcement combines Box’s robust storage and sharing features with Office’s productivity.

    This new feature is already available to Box business users with an Office 365 license and all Box users with a personal account.

     

  • You can now store up to 50,000 songs with Google Play Music

    You can now store up to 50,000 songs with Google Play Music

    Google-Play-Music

    Google is now offering an additional space to accommodate 30,000 more songs and that is on top of the already subscribed for 20,000 song capacity. This is a free upgrade that is available to all Google Play Music subscribers. You can easily subscribe to the service by following the steps here and that is if you are not a member yet.

    In case you want to listen to the music offline, then you can download your music to an iPad, iPhone or Android device. You can also access all your music via a computer on the web and the great thing about the service is that even when you upgrade to a new phone or computer, you will still be able to access all your stored music.

    Though trends are showing a significant shift from downloading of music (moving towards streaming), there is a population that is unwilling to let go of their massive music collection and these are some of the people that Google is hoping to attract.

    For easy use of the service it is best you use Chrome as it is already optimized for the service.

  • New Bitcasa CloudFS Platform Released

    New Bitcasa CloudFS Platform Released

    bitcasa

    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.

  • Amazon Makes Its Enterprise Cloud Storage Service Zocalo Available For All

    Amazon Makes Its Enterprise Cloud Storage Service Zocalo Available For All

    amazon-zocalo

    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.

  • 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.

  • Google Drive and its Game-Changing Strategy

    Google Drive has recently unleashed a storage structure that is set to change the way people view cloud storage. They have now made it possible to have online storage no matter the size. For the first 15Gb per month no fee will be charged, $1.99 for 100GB, $9.99 for 1TB and $99.99 for 10TB and above. Their new price structure makes it easier to afford online storage especially for large companies.

    Let’s compare Google drive data plan with other plans. Sugar sync charges $55 for a terabyte of data of up to three users while this cost $10 a month at Google drive. Dropbox charges $9.99 for a month’s 100 GB while Google drive offers the same space at around $2 a month. Apple charges $8.33 a month for 50 GB storage while you can be able to double that storage size for a much lesser fee. The most popular cloud service S3 cloud service offers a terabyte of storage space at $85 a month while on Google drive a terabyte cost around $10. Finally Microsoft which offer annual data plans offers 50 GB at $25 for the year while one can be able to get much more data storage and almost the same price.

    With the changes in prices in Google drives data plans, the other companies will try to lower their costs hence making online data storage that was once viewed as an expensive venture more affordable to many people and companies at a regular fee. Now more money will go into the company as opposed to it going into storage Plans for the company. This will be beneficial in making cloud storage one of the most used storage options and thereby lessening the use of traditional storage means. Just by simply changing their price structure, Google drive has been able to revolutionize how cloud storage is viewed.

  • How to Manage All Cloud Storage Services Under One Site


    Most people, and companies too, have multiple cloud storage accounts and at times it might be very hard to handle and manage all these accounts separately. Luckily, there is a way you can now access all your storage accounts at the same time. Welcome Multcloud.com, an online site that gives you access to your entire cloud storage under one platform. The site allows you to view your document, transfer them from one cloud to the other among other actions.

    To get access to the site, there are simple steps to follow.

    1. Go to multcloud.com and select the create an account option.

    2. Fill out the registration form and it is better to use a secure password that isn’t  related to any others that you use on the other cloud sites. This will make your Multcloud account more secure.

    3. After completing your registration, click on send and a confirmation link will be sent to your email. Click on the link to complete the registration process.

    4. After, the screen will show the different cloud serves and clicking on the logo will direct you to the site to start the linking process.

    5. After clicking on the logo, click on the blue logo to add the site and to give Multcloud permission to access your account on that cloud service provider.

    6. After adding all your accounts, the page changes to reveal a list of files.

    7. Finally, double click on the file you want to view just like you would on any file.

  • Amazon Lowers Its Cloud Prices after Google Slash

    Recent cut by Amazon of its cloud prices are still not enough to rival Google's cloud storage prices. The slash by amazon comes after Google announced a reduction of its storage costs – Google made a reduction on its pricing by a very high margin compared to those of their competitors such as Microsoft, Rackspace, and HP.

    Google newly introduced "sustained use" pricing model has enabled it to pass savings onto users of its cloud. This compares to Amazons model, which guarantee customers saving after they pay upfront.

    Amazon`s senior vice president defended its stand on not responding to Google new model. He said that the company lowered their prices on many occasions without any external or competitive pressure.

    Amazon and Google seem to be at the same level though their prices on key areas such as storage are still significantly different. Google has a flat rate pricing for storage while Amazon does tiered pricing.

    Amazon`s price change indicates an emerging competition among businesses offering cloud computing services. Amazon's strategy, using lower prices, has enabled it to build a successful brand. Google price change is a threat, one that deserves a response, to its cloud business margins. This comes at a time when Google and Microsoft have made continuous investment aimed at grabbing a portion of the revenue streaming into Amazon Web Services.

    Both companies have being experiencing problems that affect their core businesses. Google, for instance, has closed some of its business such as Google Reader and Wave and at times made price changes without warning their customers. This has negatively affected their customers who are now skeptical of their innovations.

    Microsoft despite having the most successful software business customers are suspicious of their products as they will be difficult to license or be costly.
    Amazon`s core business-retail- ensures use of cheap storage, ideal cloud computing, and relatively low margins.

  • Duracell Ventures into the Lucrative Cloud Storage Market

    Duracell, the battery maker and a subsidiary of Gillette is now offering cloud storage services. The service is offered at an intriguing monthly rate of $US199 for 2TB storage. There is a vast difference between batteries and cloud storage batteries and many people are wondering why Duracell has taken up this venture.

    A dig through the cloud storage service by Duracell indicates that it is not entirely in the business. It mentions Condre, a value added reseller as well as cloud facilitators offering the backup as a service. The facilitators of Condre also offer NAS/cloud storage functions.

    It has not been established whether Duracell is fronting Condre or whether Condre is using the name of Duracell. However, pundits are of the view that Duracell is poised to deliver on its claims of being 250-1000 times quicker than its rivals in the cloud storage service. The cloud storage service also includes the share n sync functions for shuttling data amongst mobile devices and PCs. This is done through the cloud backup as well as a web portal to enable access of data.

    The Duracell’s suite indicates collaboration with StorZon, which is a trademark that is held by Condre. It is said to offer cloud storage services that are Geodiverse including two data centers. Duracell indicates that the data will be stored twice on the premises and twice on the cloud. For now, the service looks to be US only.