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AT&T Battles Amazon For Cloud Dominance

J.R. Bookwalter — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:24:44 -0600

Everywhere you turn these days, cloud computing is the talk of the tech world. Apple’s domestic iPhone partner, AT&T, is preparing to take on competitors like Amazon Web Services as they roll out Synaptic Compute As A Service.

According to Data Center Knowledge, Compute As A Service offers processing power that can be used for “cloudbursting” of in-house apps or as a testing and development platform. It joins AT&T’s existing Synaptic hosting (a managed hosting service using cloud technologies) and Synaptic Storage As A Service. AT&T is hoping that its popular brand name will win the hearts of enterprises looking to the cloud.

“This will enable customers to create a provider-based private cloud accessed either via the public Internet or private connections, which many companies will already have with AT&T,” explains Steve Caniano, Vice President of Hosting and Cloud Services for AT&T.

“The model that folks like Amazon have introduced is of interest to a lot of customers. We’re offering the same kind of value proposition to enterprises, but without the issues that scare them a little bit,” Caniano explains, referring to end users’ control over their data, performance and security.

Synaptic Compute As A Service leverages Sun Microsystems hardware and VMware software and will launch in the fourth quarter of 2009. Compute services can be billed on a credit card or as a line item on an enterprise bill, offering yet another level of convenience. The service will be in U.S. data centers only for now, but AT&T plans to satisfy international customer demand by adding the service to some of its global data centers in the near future.

Online Storage Battle: Which Cloud Back-Up Service Reigns Supreme?

Susie Ochs — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:35:44 -0500

Stop us if you’ve heard this one: You should be backing up your Mac. OK, OK, you’ve heard that one before--we all have. But a huge number of Mac owners use notebooks, and backing up to an external drive isn’t always convenient. Online backup services let you back up to an off-site server (which romantics also call “the cloud”) over any Internet connection, meaning you can keep your files backed up over Wi-Fi, no wires required. Your data is encrypted for safety and stored in a secure location until you need to access it--or you stop paying your bill, whichever comes first.

Besides being incredibly convenient, some of these online data-backup services include other features, such as synchronizing and sharing files between two or more computers, accessing your files through a Web-based interface, displaying a gallery of your photos, backing up external hard drives, and so on. We’ll help you compare five Mac-friendly services, to find the right cloud for you and your precious bits and bytes.

BACKBLAZE

Set-it-and-forget-it Backblaze really wants to back up your entire hard drive, although you can exclude anything you want. It automatically excludes applications, disk images, the operating system, and temporary files, both according to where they are located (nothing in the Applications or Library folders, for example) and what their file extension is (no .log, .iso, .exe, and others). You can’t include anything that Backblaze excludes by default, but you can expand the list of exclusions. Backblaze will never back up a file larger than 4000MB, but you can nudge that ceiling down.

Backblaze defaults to backing up all your files, but you can exclude certain folders or file extensions here.

Backblaze lives in your System Preferences, with a status/shortcut icon in the menubar. Its Settings window has a slider where you can throttle the backup speed, request a reminder if you haven’t backed up in a certain number of days, and view a log showing everything scheduled for backup, plus a list of recent activity. To restore, you log in online, where you can browse your backed-up files and request a ZIP file to download (you get an email when it’s ready), a DVD mailed to you (4.2GB max, and you’ll pay a whopping $99 for it, including overnight FedEx), or get your files on a USB hard drive (500GB max, $189, also including overnight FedEx). Four weeks worth of changes are included, and you just “roll back” the date in a drop-down menu to find older versions of files. Backblaze even dates the files in the browser, which is a huge help.

Files you delete from your Mac are deleted from Backblaze after 30 days. You can back up external drives (except for Time Machine drives), but as with Mozy (see p38), be sure to reattach the drive within 30 days of removal, or Backblaze will think you deleted the “missing” files and trash them from your backup. You can’t back up network volumes, although it did offer to back up our iDisk, since that appears on our Mac as a local volume and then is synced periodically to MobileMe’s servers. (Which is why we, naturally, declined to back up iDisk.)

After you choose a set of files to restore, Backblaze prepares a ZIP archive and emails you a link when it’s ready to download.

Your data is kept safe on Backblaze by 128-bit AES encryption throughout its encoding, transfer, and storage, in a secure storage facility with biometric security, a raised floor on seismic pedestals, and other cool-sounding stuff. In the Settings you can opt to add a personal encryption key, but Backblaze doesn’t have a copy, so you can’t ever lose it, or no one will be able to recover your data.

We liked Backblaze’s thoroughness and the ability to restore our backed-up files to any computer. If you only want to back up a few folders, the interface is a little trickier than Carbonite’s (see facing page), since you need to exclude folders from the default set. Carbonite lets you start with an empty backup set and then add folders. And Backblaze won’t let you totally exclude your main Macintosh HD volume, so if you only want to back up your external drive and not your main one, you’re out of luck.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
Backblaze is affordable, attractive, and reliable. We especially appreciated its thorough documentation, down to a list of every file and process it puts on your machine  and why.

COMPANY: Backblaze
CONTACT: www.backblaze.com
PRICE: $5/month per computer. Discount: $50/year per computer.
REQUIREMENTS: Intel processor, Mac OS 10.4 or later

Web-based restore of backups can be done from any computer. Reasonable cost.

Intel Macs only.

CARBONITE

Similar to Backblaze, Carbonite lives in your System Preferences, with an icon in the menubar for checking backup status, pausing a backup for 24 hours, or launching the System Preference. By default, Carbonite backs up your whole hard drive (excluding applications, operating system files, and temporary files, just like the other services reviewed here), but the file browser is clear and easy to understand, making it a snap to assemble a custom backup set.

If you click the Automatically Manage Backups button, Carbonite backs up your whole hard drive. Or you can manually select your backup set, as we’re doing here.

Carbonite excludes any file over 4GB, as well as any video file by default, but you can add them to your backup set manually. You can’t back up external drives or network volumes. You get unlimited storage, though, so go ahead and back up the entire 4TB in your Mac Pro that we’re so jealous of.

Click Get Info when browsing your files under the Restore tab to see more about the file.

Once the initial backup is done, Carbonite keeps an eye on things and backs up changes automatically. If you need to free up system resources, you can pause Carbonite, which stops the uploads but keeps monitoring your drive for changes, or you can disable the app, which stops it completely. But we didn’t notice any lag or system sluggishness on our 2.4GHz MacBook Pro while Carbonite was doing its thing.

To restore backed-up files, just click the Restore tab in Carbonite, choose which files to restore and where you want them saved, to their original locations or anywhere else you like. Each Carbonite subscription is tied to one computer (you can purchase subscriptions for additional computers using your same log-in). You can transfer your subscription to a new Mac by logging in to Carbonite.com, and clicking Restore. This walks you through installing Carbonite on the new machine, and the app starts in Recover Mode, which freezes the backup part so that Carbonite doesn’t think all your files are missing because you erased them. You can’t change your backup sets during that time, but when you’re done restoring, you just change the main Carbonite status from Recover Mode to Enabled, and your backups resume. A handy Restore Assistant can even copy all the files from your Carbonite backup to an existing or new user account on your new Mac.

Carbonite has Remote Access to let you view and download your files from a browser, but we had trouble getting it to work. Your files are supposed to be available soon after they’re backed up, but ours didn’t appear. Carbonite.com said that new users might need to wait 24 hours for Remote Access to kick in, but several days later, we still had nothing.

Backed-up files you delete from your Mac are removed from your Carbonite backup after 30 days. And if you tell Carbonite to stop backing up a particular file, it’ll hold on to it an extra 72 hours, in case you change your mind. The service doesn’t support versioning, only keeping the most recent iteration of any file. And you can’t schedule backups, although the company plans to add that function in the future.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
The price is right for unlimited storage, and we like the convenience of controlling everything from System Preferences. The service is similar to Backblaze, but doesn’t match of all Backblaze’s features, lacking support for versioning and scheduling.

COMPANY: Carbonite
CONTACT: www.carbonite.com
PRICE: $54.95/year per computer. Discounts: $99.95 for two years; $129.95 for three years.
REQUIREMENTS: Intel processor, Mac OS 10.4 or later

Affordable, unlimited storage. You can pause or disable the app to free up resources. Restore Assistant transfers your data to a new or existing user account.

Intel Macs only. No support for versioning or scheduling. Can’t back up external drives. Video files excluded by default, but you can add them back in.  

DROPBOX

Dropbox is the mayor of Sync Town, working like iDisk but more reliably. And since anyone can have a 2GB account for free, there’s no reason not to try it out. Paid accounts are $50 a year for 50GB of storage and $100 a year for 100GB, so you might decide not to back up your entire hard drive. But the sync and sharing services are the whole point.

Your Dropbox lives in your User folder and acts like any other folder in your Finder. We added ours to our sidebar for extra convenience.

Installing the Dropbox client puts a new folder called Dropbox into your user folder, and any files you put in that folder are synced to Dropbox’s servers. You can access those files through a browser by logging in to GetDropbox.com. You can also install Dropbox on your other computers (even Windows and Linux machines), associate them with your existing Dropbox account, and access your files from there. It’s meant to replace clunkier methods, such as emailing files to yourself or carting them around on USB flash drives.

Dropbox syncs your files instantaneously--we stuck five JPEGs in ~/Dropbox/Photos, and they appeared in our list of synced files on GetDropbox.com within 10 seconds. Your Dropbox folder contains folders called Public and Photos by default. You can share files in the Public folder with friends (even if they don’t use Dropbox) by emailing them a public URL. To get it, just view your Public folder at GetDropbox.com, click the file you want to share, and choose Copy Public URL from the contextual menu. You can email the link or paste it into an IM chat, and your recipient can view or download the file in their browser.

Any photos you add to Dropbox’s Photos folder also appear in an online gallery.

Drag some photos into the Photos folder within Dropbox, and Dropbox creates an online gallery. It’s not as attractive as MobileMe’s online galleries, but it’s an easy way to share photos online—just email friends the link to the gallery or right-click any photo and choose Copy Link Location to get links to specific pictures.

You can also set up Shared folders from which other Dropbox users can upload and download files. You invite friends by email address, and they’re required to sign up for Dropbox accounts. And if they don’t want to install the Dropbox client on their computers, they can stick to the Web interface only. Referring friends to Dropbox gets you each 250MB of extra free storage; grab your referral link from GetDropbox.com >  Account > Referral Status. You can earn up to 3GB of free space from referrals. Joining other people’s Shared folders does affect your quota, since the files in that folder now show up in your Dropbox as well.

In our tests, Dropbox was smooth and stable. And it’s convenient: We added the Dropbox folder to our Finder window’s sidebar, plus put an alias on our Desktop. Status updates appear as Growl notifications, or you can see them by clicking the menubar icon.

We especially liked how Dropbox deals with conflicts. If two users are working on the same file, whoever uploads it last “wins,” but the “losing” file is synced to Dropbox and time-stamped with the name of the computer that did the edit, so you can figure out which version you want. And we loved browsing our files on our iPhone: Head to m.getdropbox.com on your device, and log in to view recent Dropbox activity, browse your files, and view images and documents right in Mobile Safari.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
Dropbox is incredibly convenient and useful, especially if you have multiple computers and are constantly shuffling files between them. The robust  forums (forums .getdropbox.com) and wiki (wiki .getdropbox .com) are great resources for  help and tips.

COMPANY: Dropbox
CONTACT: www.getdropbox.com
PRICE: Free for 2GB of storage. 50GB is $9.99/month or $99/year. 100GB is $19.99/month or $199/year.
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.4 or later

Super-fast syncing across as many machines as you like. Easily share photos and files with friends. Great Web interface, plus a client that integrates seamlessly into Mac OS X. Universal binary.

Joining a Shared folder affects your quota.

SPIDEROAK

SpiderOak is flexible enough to back up anything, to share files easily with your friends, and to sync files between Mac, Windows, and Linux machines. It installs as an actual application, but it’s Flash-based, so if you use it on two or more platforms, the experience will be the same.

The Backup tab lets you select categories (to the left) or specific folders to back up.

You can back up as many computers, external hard drives, and network volumes and servers to your SpiderOak account as you want. The other services we tested don’t allow you to back up network volumes, but since SpiderOak sells storage in 100GB increments, you’re encouraged to back up as much as possible. You select the files and folders to back up in the Back Up tab of the SpiderOak app, or you can just click the checkbox for a preset category, including Dekstop, Documents, Email, Movies, Music, and Pictures. The preferences let you exclude files and folders by wildcard (filenames including *.zip, for example) or exclude files based on their size or age.

SpiderOak keeps all versions of your files, in case you want to restore an older one.

Once files are backed up to your SpiderOak network, they appear in the View tab, where you can browse the folder structure for each of your backed-up devices. Select a folder to highlight the Changelog and Merge buttons. Merge does a one-time merge of all the files in any two folders on your SpiderOak network. The Download button restores your selected files to a location you specify in the preferences.

Your files are encrypted with a combination of 2,048-byte RSA and 256-bit AES and compressed, so you’re not paying for more storage space than you need. When you change a file, SpiderOak only saves the changes, so the data blocks for the parts of your file that didn’t change aren’t backed up again. And if you have a file on two machines and back up both to your SpiderOak network, the file will appear in both machines’ View list, even though it’s only stored on SpiderOak’s server once. You still see all versions of your files under the View tab, and clicking a file with more than one version displays the date each was updated, so you can find the one you need.

Share sets, which are set up in the Share tab, make chosen files and folders in your SpiderOak network available to anyone via their Web browser. You choose a Share ID and Room Key, which are combined into a URL you give to friends. And the Sync tab lets you set up Sync sets, choosing two folders in your SpiderOak network that will always stay in sync on the local machines. We used one Sync set to keep our ~/Documents/Receipts folder synced between our home iMac and work laptop, or you could sync a local folder to an external hard drive.

SpiderOak even encrypts your encryption key. The company doesn’t know your password, although you can set up a hint. SpiderOak employees can never access your data—and if you forget your password completely, neither can you.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
We loved the Sync feature, as well as the ability to archive files to the SpiderOak network and delete them off the local machine. If our only complaint is that the SpiderOak icon stays in your Dock when the app is running, you know there’s not much to complain about.

COMPANY: SpiderOak
CONTACT: www.spideroak.com
PRICE: 2GB free. Additional storage sold in 100GB increments, $10/month or $100/year.
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.4 or later

Back up as many computers, externals, network volumes as you like. Combine two folders with a one-time merge or a constant sync. Keeps all versions of your files without duplicating data blocks. Doesn’t delete files from your backup unless you tell it to. Universal binary.

SpiderOak app must be open all the time.

Home Sweet MozyHome
We reviewed MozyHome in our Dec/08 issue (4 out of 5 stars, p67), and we’re still using the service a half-year later. It provides unlimited storage space, flexible backup options, strong encryption, and you can order DVDs of your backed-up data, if you can’t restore files by downloading them. We’ve included MozyHome in the chart below for comparison’s sake. To read the full review, see www.maclife.com/article/reviews/mozyhome.

Online Backup Services: How They Stack Up

You’ve read the reviews. You’ve oogled the screenshots. Now we offer this handy side-by-side comparison of each service’s features and fees so you get a clear view of how they differ. Happy shopping!

NAME	MOZYHOME	CARBONITE	BACKBLAZE	DROPBOX	SPIDEROAK
Website	www.mozy.com/home	www.carbonite.com	www.backblaze.com	www.getdropbox.com	www.spideroak.com
Universal or Intel only	Universal	Intel only	Intel only	Universal	Universal
Pricing	$4.95/month per computer. $54.45 for one year, $103.45 for two years.	$54.95/year. $99.95 for two years. $129.95 for three years.	$5/month per computer. $50 for one year.	2GB free. 50GB is $9.99/month or $99/year. 100GB is $19.99/month or $199/year.	2GB free. Additional space is $10/month per 100GB, or $100/year per 100GB.
Discounts	One-year subscription saves $4.95. Two-year subscription saves $15.35.	Two-year subscription saves $19.95. Three-year subscription saves $34.90.	One-year subscription saves $10.	50GB for $99/year saves $20.88, and 100GB for $199/year saves $40.88.	One-year subscription saves you $20 per 100GB of space.
Trial	2GB free (forever)	15 days	15 days	2GB free (forever)	2GB free (forever)
Unlimited data	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes, paid per 100GB
Web access	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Backs up external drives	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Backs up network drives	No (MozyPro Server does, see Mozy.com)	No	No	No	Yes
How long deleted files stay backed up	30 days	30 days	30 days	Deleted instantly	Forever
Supports versioning	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Supports scheduling	Yes	No	Yes	No (instant)	No
Upload speed throttle	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Free restore methods	Mozy Restore client app, and downloading from Mozy.com	Carbonite pane in System Preferences, and downloading from Carbonite.com	Logging in to Backblaze.com and requesting a restore. You get an email with a link to download a ZIP file containing your data.	Downloading from GetDropbox.com	SpiderOak client app, and downloading from SpiderOak.com
Paid restore methods	DVD restore is $29.95, plus 50 cents per gigabyte being restored, and FedEx Next Day shipping rate.	None	DVD up to 4.2GB is $99. USB hard drive up to 500GB is $189. Both include overnight FedEx delivery.	None	None
Extra features besides backup and restore	None	None	None	Syncs files across multiple machines (Mac, Windows, Linux). Photo sharing. Public folder for file sharing. Share folders with other Dropbox users.	ShareRooms let people log in and access your files over the Web. Keep any two folders in sync. Save encrypted data blocks locally. Merge contents of two folders.

MobileMe or MobileYours? Is 'The Cloud' About to Shower Strangers with Your Data?

Michelle Delio — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:12:00 -0500

Before you head off into "The Cloud," plant your feet firmly on the ground and figure out how to protect yourself and your data from legal and privacy threats as well as technological snafus, outright failures and other interesting occurrences.

As you’ve likely noticed, Cloud computing is the newest big idea that’s going to magically solve all our “pain points” -- that’s a marketing department term for the things that drive you insane with frustration. The annoyances that you can appease by wrapping yourself in a puffy white computing cloud include, lack of easy access to your stuff when you’re using various computers and devices, and problems encountered when sharing your stuff with others.

But for every problem solved by technology, another problem is created. When you use Cloud-computing applications like Web mail, iDisk and Google Docs, the program and your data don’t live on your local hard drive, they’re stored somewhere out there on the service provider’s hardware. The way it’s supposed to work is that you and your chosen others can effortlessly access this data from any compatible device, using a web browser, whenever desired.

It all sounds so swell … until those puffy white clouds turn dark and a hard rain falls on our happy little ethereal computing wonderland. The mail service goes down, the service provider goes out of business, somebody hacks something and your personal data is stolen, etc.

And there are some ominous thunder rumbles from the legislative branch of the US government stating that any data you have stored in The Cloud may not be as private as you might expect. By placing it in a venue where you, so say some legislators, had no expectation of privacy, you’re also entitled to less legal protection than you would if you kept that same data safely tucked away on your own personal computer. For a more detailed discussion of how privacy and The Cloud might work, there’s a useful post on the University of Chicago’s Law School Blog.

In general, e-mail isn’t ever the best way to conduct discussions about clandestine or criminal activities. Should you need to consult with your partners in crime, and you really want to do so using email, consider restricting those exchanges to a private, paid non-webmail account -- a recent court ruling (Warshak v. United States) indicates you have more expectations of privacy in a legal sense when you aren’t using remotely stored e-mail. Preferably, anything that you wouldn’t print on the back of a postcard should be encrypted when sent in email -- if that’s too much of a hassle, pick up a phone. And do resist any bizarre inclinations you may have to use Cloud services to back up documentation of your illegal, or super-secret activities.

And while it’s not likely that any of the big webmail services will go out of business tomorrow, a quick glance at the latest headlines demonstrates that we’re living in strange financial times. If losing the e-mails (and contact information) stored in a webmail account would cause you financial or emotional harm, back ‘em up. Apple provides mail backup instructions for the obviously-cursed-by-an-evil-stepmother-at-birth MobileMe service here, Gmail instructions are here. For Hotmail, you can download MacFreePops and use it to move Hotmail messages into Mac OS X Mail. If you use Yahoo mail, you’re out of luck in the backing up department unless you spring for Yahoo Mail Plus at a cost of $19.99 a year.

If you’re backing up data into the cloud, first read the privacy policy of the hosting company (yes, you really have to, sorry) to make sure they don’t claim rights over the data stored on their infrastructure. Send them an e-mail if there are any stipulations that you don’t understand and ask for clarification. Be aware that policies change whenever our corporate overlords find a new way to make a dime, so re-check the policy periodically. And think hard about storing critical or highly personal data anywhere that is not under your personal control.

All that said, good backup practices dictate that we should have a redundant copy of our most important data in a remote location, far away from the floods, fires, and other hellish events that might make Backup A inaccessible. If your livelihood depends on your data, backing up onto a remote cloud server like Amazon’s S3 service using Jungle Disk, may be your best option. Jungle Disk encrypts stored data, if you choose a service that doesn’t do so check out TrueCrypt for a great encryption solution.

Synching in the Cloud can be a security issue, especially if services don’t provide a way to encrypt the data when it’s on their servers or being transmitted to their servers. Numerous investigations by security experts (Google “Privacy and MobileMe”) indicate that MobileMe does not encrypt data while it is in transit. Use it on an unsecure connection like public wireless and your data can be snagged by anyone in the vicinity with basic hacking skills. Depending on what sort of information you’re synching this could be an issue -- your contacts, bookmarks and calendar? Likely not a big deal. Anything with passwords, financial data and other personally identifiable information that you’d prefer to be kept private shouldn’t ever be sent over wireless connections unencrypted, obviously.

None of this is rocket science. Wireless connections are notoriously insecure, corporations don’t always have our best interests in mind, governments make wacky laws, and logic tells us that having only one copy of any important data is tantamount to taunting the gods of technology. But practicing safe and sensible computing will go a long way in ensuring that your data is secured from technological traumas here on earth or in the Cloud.