Table of Contents
Primary Use Cases
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Introduction
This white paper describes Gladinet Cloud Team Edition, an access solution that
supports the BASIC use cases for online storage.
These include:
- Backup local content to online storage
- Access online storage with any device
- Share and Synchronize content
- Identity Integration
- Collaborate securely
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Problem Statement
As businesses migrate to online storage, they are faced with the challenge of providing
an easy way for their employees to take full advantage without re-training or otherwise
disrupting their existing workflow.
In general, online cloud storage is designed for use by developers. For example,
a business’ users can’t easily access
Amazon S3 storage unless they acquire a third party access solution. They
need a simple solution that provides familiar interfaces that can be used to leverage
online storage for its most important use cases.
For the purposes of security and control, many businesses also want the freedom
to choose which cloud storage service they trust and use.
Previous Options
There are many online storage solutions. Most focused on web browser based access
but don't provide desktop client with drive mapping capability. Re-training is required
for the new user interface.
Many provide PC client tools for Windows XP, Windows 7 and Mac but don't provide
file server access or file server sync.
Almost all of the other online storage solutions are based on Amazon S3 under the
hood, but don't provide choices for additional online cloud storage services such
as Google Cloud
Storage, HP Cloud Storage,
Rackspace Cloud
Files,
Windows Azure Blob Storage,
OpenStack Swift Object Storage,
Nirvanix, EMC
Atmos and or Amazon S3 compatible services like
Scality.
Many will ask you to go to their web site to use the service but don't provide self-host
options with white-label capability.
Compared to peer online storage solutions, Gladinet Cloud is quite unique by providing
drive mapping random access; providing file server cloud storage gateway and server
sync; providing the same solution integrated with many online cloud storage service
providers; and even providing the self-host and white-label capabilities.
Gladinet Solution
Gladinet Cloud Team Edition solves these problems with a flexible, multi-tiered
architecture.
This architecture allows any cloud storage service to be used with the Gladinet
Cloud access infrastructure and provides support for multiple device types and file
servers.
Benefit 1 - Hybrid Online Storage
The Gladinet Cloud access solution incorporates existing on-premise data with online
storage in a hybrid access solution where you have the flexibility to keep some
data on site while the rest is moved to the cloud.
Benefit 2 - Global Namespace
Content from multiple sites will be combined into a single, global namespace that
can be uniformly accessed from any device in any location.
Benefit 3 - Choice of Trusted Service Provider
You can select your trusted service provider first, such as HP Cloud or Windows
Azure, before you put the online storage solution together for your company. You
can also ask your trusted service provider to deploy the Gladinet Cloud solution
for you.
Solution Highlights
Online Backup
Every business has information that is vital to its successful operation. This is
true no matter what the size of the organization. In fact, there are many statistics
which clearly indicate that data loss is a significant driver of business failures.
These businesses not only need to backup essential information, they are faced
with the challenge of dealing with more and more of it across many different types
of devices. It is becoming increasingly difficult for IT professionals to manage
the rising costs of managing their rapidly expanding data sets.
Attached Folder Synchronization
To address these issues, Gladinet Cloud Team Edition provides the ability to attach
an existing folder to online storage.
The contents of an attached folder will be synchronized with online storage and
will immediately become accessible for remote users. From the users’ perspective,
it will appear that all content was instantly uploaded.
This is in stark contrast to most online storage access services where files in
a folder will not become accessible until they have been copied to cloud storage,
and users have to wait while data is being copied from an on-premise location to
online storage, where it will become available for access.
Synchronization and Versioned Backup
The attached folder’s contents will be synchronized with the cloud and a versioned
backup will be maintained for each file in the attached folder, but even before
the initial synchronization is completed, the entire contents of the attached folder
can be accessed anywhere by any of the Gladinet clients.
Hybrid Access
Once the initial synchronization has been completed, you have the option to remove
the original server or continue to work in hybrid mode where the attached folder
can be accessed through the on-premise file server or offsite with any device. In
either case, changes that are made to the folder’s contents will be synchronized
and restores can be performed from the versioned backup.
Snapshot Backup
Gladinet Cloud Team Edition also provides a snapshot backup which supports the backup
of open or locked files. Snapshot backups provide optimal efficiency since they
only store the incremental changes once the initial snapshot has been stored.
Online Storage Access
Perhaps the most basic challenge of online storage is how to provide access. Fundamentally,
cloud storage services use primitive commands embedded in the HTTP protocol. These
commands allow a developer to write programs that can interact with cloud storage
but are not helpful for end users who need to access online storage using familiar
paradigms like a drive letter on their desktop, or a file share on their network.
Gladinet Cloud Team Edition gives them the capability to access online storage from
any device using native interfaces.
Mapped Drive Access
Gladinet’s solution provides a mapped drive on PCs so that users can use familiar
tools like Windows Explorer and Mac Finder to access files in their online storage.
A big advantage of the Gladinet approach is that you can maintain your existing
file tree hierarchy - unlike other solutions which require your existing directory
structure to be refactored to a special folder.
Mobile Device Access
The Team Edition provides mobile applications for any iOS or Android device. Once
installed, these applications allow native mobile device access to the Gladinet
Cloud. For example, on an iPhone, the Gladinet Cloud application can be downloaded
from the Apple store, configured with a Gladinet user name and password (which could
actually come from active directory) and then used for direct access to files in
the Gladinet Cloud or on an on-premise file server.
File Server Integration with Online Storage
Gladinet Cloud Team Edition provides several clients including Gladinet Cloud Server which is specifically designed
for file servers. This client allows a file server to act as an online storage gateway
providing clientless access to online storage through network file shares. It also
allows existing file shares to be attached to online storage for instant access.
Web Portal
Gladinet Cloud can be accessed from any modern web browser, such as IE, Chrome,
Firefox, Safari and Opera. An explorer-like interface is provided and files can
be dragged directly into the browser.
Synchronization and Sharing
As mentioned above, the contents of an attached folder will be synchronized with
online storage and will immediately become accessible for remote users.
Users are also provided with the ability to share a file or folder with anyone.
Identity Integration with Online Storage
Secure online collaboration is made possible through Gladinet’s tight integration
with Active Directory. Any Gladinet Cloud Server
instance can be used as a proxy by the Gladinet Cloud infrastructure to automatically
sync user information from Active Directory. The user information is used to control
authorization and access to shared content like team folders.
Secure Online Collaboration
Administrators can create shared workspaces with access controls using Team Folders
in Gladinet Cloud. Once published by the administrator, a team folder will become
accessible by every account user who has been granted access.
Any folder in the Gladinet Cloud can be published as a team folder. This makes it
possible to attach an existing folder on an on-premise file server to Gladinet Cloud,
and then publish it as a team folder.
With Gladinet’s AD integration, a user can therefore login to the Gladinet cloud
with his existing Active Directory credentials, and then access the team folder
remotely from a desktop, laptop or mobile device. And any changes made to the contents
of the team folder will be protected by distributed file locking and synchronized
across all locations.
Summary
Gladinet Cloud Team Edition allows an organization to provide simple, secure access
to online storage for all their backup, synchronization and collaboration needs.
With the Gladinet solution, users can continue to use familiar paradigms like mapped
drives, file shares and applications on their mobile devices to leverage online
storage.
Next Steps
If you haven't seen "Gladinet Cloud" in action, click the button below to sign up
for a team edition account. It has 14-day trial that gives you direct experience
of what it is.The sign up process is 3 minutes, so you can see it in action very
quickly and evaluate it thoroughly.
See Also
Folder Share Across the Internet
Use online storage as if it were just another drive
on your PC
Simple Online Collaboration
Gladinet
Cloud Team Edition How-Tos
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