Cloud Competing Services Rain or Shine Cloud Competing Services

Covered by Scott Amazon Box Dropbox Google Drive

Cloud Providers (cont’d) Microsoft OneDrive OneDrive for Business (Office 365) Apple iCloud Specialized Clouds Personal “Clouds” Comparisons Why should I?

OneDrive Consumer service from Microsoft Free: 5 GB (was 15 + 15 for camera) Built in to Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 Available on Windows 7, Vista, Mac OSX, IOS (Apple phone/tablet), Windows Phone, and Android Much more space available either by rental or as part of non-business Office 365

OneDrive - more than 5 GB 50 GB of space is currently $1.99/month Office 365 Personal provides 1 TB of space for one user AND the Office 365 installed software for one user on one computer (PC or Mac) and one tablet/phone. $6.99/month or $69.99/year. Office 365 Home provides the above for up to 5 users, with up to 5 computers and 5 devices. $9.99/month or $99.99/year

Office apps online https://www.office.com/ NO install – online apps free: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, Mail, People, Calendar, Sway, Docs.com These online apps are currently available with the consumer version of OneDrive. Additional apps are available with the business version. To use them and connect, you must login with your Microsoft account.

Microsoft Account Began widespread use with Windows 8, account is free, based on email address and password (or PIN) Allows sharing of certain information and configuration across multiple devices by same user. You do NOT have to be on Windows, or even have a Windows device to use Email can be used with Linux, but there is no cloud client

OneDrive for Business Totally different system from OneDrive, works differently No “free” usage, generally bundled as a part of Office 365 business plans Different plans with different features. Some are only Office applications, others includes storage and email.

Example OD4 Business cost Enterprise E3 plan, $20/month if prepaid yearly. Includes 1TB of storage, internal websites, robust Exchange based email, possible recovery of ALL documents and mail, searching docs/mail for legal “discovery.” Also plans for small businesses. Storage is based on SharePoint database engine. April 2016 new Mac combined client Client apps for IOS and Android

Apple iCloud Consumer/business service from Apple Free space: 5GB Client available on Mac OSX, IOS (Apple phone/tablet), Windows, Android (email can be used with Linux, but no cloud client). You do NOT have to have an Apple device to use an iCloud account. An iCloud account cannot be created on a PC, but an iCloud account can be created on Mac, iPad, or iPhone, then used on PC.

iCloud – more than 5 GB iCloud plans are available for 50GB, 200GB, and 1TB. In the US, 50GB is $0.99/month, 200GB is $2.99, and 1TB is $9.99. iCloud is also used to share certain configuration information between Apple devices (as OneDrive does on Windows 8 and 10) iCloud is basic backup system for IOS devices

Specialized Clouds There are a multitude of specialized cloud service providers. Meaning: not general purpose file storage Example: Acronis has a cloud service for backups. The personal version for one computer and three mobile devices is about $100/year. They also have plans for business servers, some of which are complex.

Specialized Providers Another example: Many Accounting Software companies provide cloud-based services. Ideal for mobile small businesses (such as lawn service providers). Invoice can be generated and emailed directly from a cellular phone or tablet. Larger firm Accounting software companies like Sage provide cloud-based secure backup.

Personal “Cloud” There is some dispute whether or not these are truly cloud based services. I think they qualify, although not located in traditional data centers with large pipes to the Internet. There are many companies making devices that are collectively called “Network Attached Storage.” Some of these are huge business systems.

Personal Cloud Others are consumer and small business sized and priced. Western Digital makes NAS devices that they call “WD My Cloud.” Seagate makes NAS devices that they call “Seagate Personal Cloud.” These devices range from single hard drive to RAID arrays with six hard drives

Personal Cloud devices (NAS): Below operate with Windows, Mac, IOS, Android. Example: WD My Cloud - 2 TB to 8 TB. $140 up. Seagate Personal Cloud – 3 TB to 5 TB. $140 up. Seagate Personal Cloud 2 bay – 6 TB & 8 TB $350 up.

Small Business/Home Seagate NAS Pro 2-bay to 6 bay. 2TB to 30 TB - $500 to $2,000. Windows, Mac, Linux, IOS, Android. Browser based interface or “S-Drive” client software. Can be setup with various RAID configurations for higher reliability. I have an 8TB 4-bay setup with RAID5 for 6TB capacity External USB Drive can be connected for backup (should be Linux formatted to work best) Should be on a UPS with USB connection

How these work Each device has a serial number/MAC address, which is registered with WD or Seagate and associated with a logical name. Then access is through a browser. Example: https://mynas.seagate.com/nasname Add-on software is available in the NAS OS and from WD/Seagate for client, anti-virus (paid), things like Mac TimeMachine compatibility, Linux NFS compatibility, etc.

When inside the local network, the device can be connected with the usual Windows or Mac file sharing protocols, so it appears in File Explorer or Finder. This can be done from remote locations using browser or client software. The device can have different shares created, and each can have different user and group permissions (no access, read-only, full) Backups can be scheduled.

Strategy for use First, one can definitely use more than one. I have Box, Dropbox, GoogleDrive, iCloud, OneDrive for Business, and OneDrive on PCs, Macs, tablets, and phones. Occasionally, one can get a special promotion that provides lots of “free” storage (sometimes indefinitely – I have 50 GB on Box from purchase of HP Windows 8 Tablet back in 2012 indefinitely)

On a computer with lots of RAM and HD space, all of the clients can be resident and running. This syncs a local copy of all documents between the computer and the cloud. This doesn’t work well on computers/ tablets/phones with limited RAM and/or HD space. It is best to use the Browser interface, and only copy stuff that is needed at the moment, then send the revised version back to the cloud.

Not all apps work with all clouds Mostly tablet and phone apps: Some are only designed to connect with specific clouds. Example: OneNote is designed to work with OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint (applicable for business Office 365), and now can be used with Dropbox with latest version of OneNote.

How much can one get for free? Box 10 GB (I have 50, but the 10 is general) Dropbox 2 GB base, up to 16GB by referrals, at .5 GB per referral Google Drive 15 GB (Google Docs don’t count toward usage) iCloud 5 GB OneDrive 5 GB (formerly up to 30GB) That’s 37 GB of free storage up to 51 GB (AWS not included since is one year only)

Why not just keep it all at home? How about security? As good as (or as poor as) your account name/password I’m afraid I’ll be hacked? Only un-hackable system in existence is not connected to anything (and never used for anything) Too much trouble to synchronize? Really? If you load the client and set it up, just about all of these synchronize automatically (can be paused with most of them if needed)

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