Cloud user areas

[browolf]

There seems to be an abundance of cloud storage services surfacing at the moment

for instance

 

SkyDrive - Windows Live

Dropbox - Home - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy.

 

I got to wondering whether its feasible to hive userareas off into cloud storage. Presumably no one is offering guaranteed back-upped storage at the moment as we would require but I imagine its only a matter of time before someone realises the potential value to schools of such a service.

[eean]

Unless you've got an amazing internet connection I think you're going to run into problems. Imagine it: 30 kids saving 30mb images over a net connection - something's going to give.

[dwhyte85]

Our Macs use DropBox... you certainly know when they're working with DropBox, thankfully they do not do it all at the same time. Still as above, I wouldn't do it unless necessary - DropBox is our head of musics toy, not mine - i just make sure it works.

[PEO]

Drop box will do just the job for me... Im always leaving my usb drive at home or at the office

[Face-Man]

if you use https://www.mesh.com you can have synchronized folders between computers (speed not as much of an issue) or even remote into home and pick up the file you've forgotten

[dwhyte85]

This is going to sound a bit of a dim question to people who already know...

 

I thought Cloud computing was as simple as FTP, if so with 3rd party software it could be mapped as a home drive/redirect to my Docs, eg, script maps X as ftp/webdav or software on machine startup as service and My Docs points to X? Netdrive and the original drive software from Novell would do this capably, I guess automation would be the issue on this but it must be partially doable?

Edited October 26, 2009 by dwhyte85

[gshaw]

I'd love to be able to tie a SkyDrive account \ LiveID to a Windows Server \ AD account then have the SkyDrive appear as a drive letter in My Computer

 

I think it's in the MS roadmap as LiveID and ID merge together but it's not ready yet... would be great to have the Live@Edu take the strain of user storage for VLE and so on but all tied in with your network login accounts

[SYNACK]

If you were so inclined and had a huge link to the internet (does not exist in NZ) then you could write a server based remapper application that converted a local UNC path into a series of livedrive accounts and store all of the credentials in AD by expanding the schema a little. I don't know if MS would allow programatic creation of user accounts but if the live@edu ones are able to host livedrive then the same sync tool used for that would already be doing the job. It would just be a case of somebody writing the proxy application to handle the requests from \\server\livedrive\%username% to the appropriate livedrive account as stored in AD. Thinking of it all of the nessisary stuff would probably be in AD anyway if you were using live@edu.

 

Oh and I do not volunter to code it, it is over my head coding wise.

Edited January 20, 2010 by SYNACK

[somabc]

Would you not have the profiles/homedir on the server in the normal way and have the cloud backup system backup from the server either continuously or overnight?

 

I mean it's not that different than backing up to your own TAPE/DAS/SAN whatever.

[SYNACK]

I think that the idea is to completely offload storage to a globally accessable site like skydrive that way students work is avalible to them wherever they are instantly and someone else takes care of storage and backup etc.

 

Given the current rate of progress here I'd say we're at least 15-20 years away from having bandwidth anything like that in all or even the majority of schools over here in NZ.

 

The UNC proxy would just be a quick way of implementing it with current server technology and infrastructure for stuff like documents folder redirection, stuff like permissions could be tricky though - and nessisary for redirection to work.

[somabc]

Then why not have your DC's as Amazon EC2 Instances?

[dwhyte85]

In terms of cost, is this really doable - I read that a fairly decent instance of a server on EC2 would cost a fair chunk a month...

[painejake]

I was thinking about something simular and found EyeOS. Its a online web-based operating system quite a exciting project from my point of view

 

EyeOS - Cloud Computing Operating System | Web Desktop - RIA Framework - Web Office - your files and applications everywhere

 

I've setup a demo if you want to have a look of version 1.9 (Just a standard installation)

 

Welcome to The Cloud

 

I going to look at a LDAP plugin for it over the next week or so and see if it can be used for staff as a desktop away from home accessing their documents and SIMS via EyeOS.

 

Hope this doesnt sound like a sales pitch

[somabc]

In terms of cost, is this really doable - I read that a fairly decent instance of a server on EC2 would cost a fair chunk a month...

 

You can now transfer your windows licences to Amazon to save some money

 

Microsoft Windows Server License Mobility Pilot for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)

[browolf]

I was thinking about something simular and found EyeOS. Its a online web-based operating system quite a exciting project from my point of view

 

EyeOS - Cloud Computing Operating System | Web Desktop - RIA Framework - Web Office - your files and applications everywhere

 

I've setup a demo if you want to have a look of version 1.9 (Just a standard installation)

 

Welcome to The Cloud

 

I going to look at a LDAP plugin for it over the next week or so and see if it can be used for staff as a desktop away from home accessing their documents and SIMS via EyeOS.

 

Hope this doesnt sound like a sales pitch

 

I had a look. that is pretty neat!

[browolf]

You can now transfer your windows licences to Amazon to save some money

 

Microsoft Windows Server License Mobility Pilot for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)

 

only if

 

Your company must be based (or have a legal entity) in the United States

[painejake]

I had a look. that is pretty neat!

 

Yeah I thought so too :-)

[Cue]

I hate to necro post (barely... =P), but I thought this might be of some use to you. Supports AD, etc. Albeit the costs for the clouds are not cheap by any means.

[browolf]

having our internet upgraded to 100mb fibre in a few weeks might have to have another look at dropbox

[zag]

We're getting 100mbit as well soon and it got me wondering if this was feasable.

 

I still don't see any way to map a drive to a skydrive/dropbox account though

[SYNACK]

I still don't see any way to map a drive to a skydrive/dropbox account though

 

 

Solutions do exist but aren't native and don't seem to be easily automated yet

Mount Windows Live SkyDrive To A Drive Letter In Windows Explorer [How-To]

Map Local Drive Letter To Live SkyDrive Using Office 2010

[zag]

I gave Skydrive a go but its awful, you can't even upload whole folders and it has a 50mb limit.

 

All I wanted to do was backup my photos, oh dear.

 

I also tried mapping skydrive to a drive letter but got some weird error message when trying to copy. Gave up in the end.

 

FAIL.

[CyberNerd]

Moodle 2.0 has plugins for external repositories, so teachers can use them to share resources.

 

nitial plugins in 2.0 include: Alfresco, Amazon S3, Box.net, File system on Server, Flickr, Google Docs, MERLOT, Picasa, Recent Files, WebDAV servers, Wikimedia, Youtube. These are simple to develop, so many more are expected.

 

Moodle 2.0 release notes - MoodleDocs

[CyberNerd]

This looks interesting. Allows mapping a range of different cloud services as a drive letter.

GLADINET - Cloud Storage Access Platform & Solutions

[SneakyBeaky]

Yes, Gladinet works. I have been using the free version on my home computer for a few weeks now. I can upload whole folders with no problems. I have it mapped to a skydrive account.