How to connect to Rackspace Cloud Files UK

About 10 days ago, Rackspace launched UK Cloud. Even though it is under the same Rackspace Cloud brand, it is like a different cloud company in the eyes of software vendors. For example, the existing tools that connect to Rackspace Cloud Files US will need to be enhanced to support the Rackspace UK Cloud.

It feels like a different company to consumers too. For example, you will need to go to the Rackspace UK Cloud site and apply a new account. Your existing Rackspace US account won’t work for the UK Cloud.  (https://lon.manage.rackspacecloud.com/CloudFiles.do)

Gladinet has updated its cloud storage access solutions to work with Rackspace UK Cloud.

Use Internap XIPCloud from On-Premise File Server

This is part 2 of a 3-piece tutorial introducing the Gladinet Cloud Access Solutions to the Internap XIPCloud storage.

Internap XIPCloud Storage is the latest public cloud storage that opens to the public. It is currently in beta stage and the signup is self serving. You can signup at http://www.internap.com. The XIPCloud Storage marketing materials are all over the home page and it will be hard to miss.

After you signed up for the Internap XIPCloud, what will be the next step? You have several choices:

(A) You have a special application that want to use XIPCloud with its raw API. For example, you have a web application for users to upload pictures. The uploaded pictures will be saved to XIPCloud over its API.

(B) You don’t want to interface the XIPCloud in its raw API format, you want to access it like traditional storage, such as a virtual hard drive. In this case, you can use Gladinet solutions.

The last tutorial covers the desktop/laptop use case, when you install Gladinet Cloud Desktop on your PC and it maps a virtual network drive to Internap XIPCloud.

This article will describe how to attach Internap XIPCloud Storage to a on-premise file server. The benefit is that you can have a group of users, with zero client installation, using Internap XIPCloud Storage through the file server.

In this sense, the file server is a cloud storage gateway.

Internap XIPCloud vs. Rackspace Cloud Files

Internap XIPCloud is the latest cloud storage offering that is open to the public. It is a public cloud and you can sign up for the service pretty easily at http://internap.com.

As usual, when a new cloud service came out, we will use Gladinet Cloud Desktop to test its upload and download speed. There are many factors in the speed test. For example, how far away is the cloud storage service data center is one of the main factor.

Since Internap head quarter is in Atlanta, I would think that its data centers may be closer for people in the US south east region.

This simple test will compare the speed with Rackspace Cloud Files, since both have similar technology in OpenStack Object Storage.

First we mount both an Internap XIPCloud account and a Rackspace Cloud Files account into Windows Explorer, as side by side folders.

Internap XIPCloud Windows Client

Internap XIPCloud Storage, which just went into a limited beta test release, is the first major application using the OpenStack open source cloud computing platform outside of Rackspace. – eWEEK

If you are interested in using Internap XIPCloud, you can sign up for a beta account at http://www.internap.com/

After you have signed up with a beta account, you may want to access it from your Windows desktops and laptops. This article shows you how to quickly connect to Internap XIPCloud and do drag and drop transfer from Windows Explorer.

First you will need Gladinet Cloud Desktop. There will be 2 more follow on articles if your use case is from a file server (Gladinet Cloud AFS) or snapshot backup (Gladinet Cloud Backup).

For this article, the use case is focused on cloud storage usage from Desktop and Laptops.

Integrate OpenStack Storage to File Server

OpenStack Object Storage is an open source software for creating scalable cloud storage solutions. Its’ open source nature makes it very attractive to service providers. For example, in the recent news (Computer World), Internap is offering a new public cloud storage service that it built using software from OpenStack.

If you are OpenStack based service provider, here at Gladinet, we have solutions for you to deliver end-to-end cloud storage solutions to your customers. This article discuss solutions that attach OpenStack storage to a file server.

Use Rackspace Cloud Files as a File Server

Rackspace Cloud Files is a good cloud storage choice. Rackspace will host your data inside its data centers and allow you to use the online storage over the Internet – thus cloud storage for you.

File server replacement is one of the main cloud storage use case. Basically you can attach cloud storage as a tier 2 storage to an on-premise file server and extends the file server’s capability. If the file server goes down for whatever reason, you can quickly provision a new file server and attach the same cloud storage to it as part of the business continuity strategy.

This article will cover steps to turn Rackspace Cloud Files storage into a tier 2 storage for an on-premise file server.

Step 1 – Rackspace Cloud Files Account

First you will need to establish a Rackspace Cloud Files account. After login into the cloud control panel, you can go to your Account area and click on the API Access, which will lead to your username and API Key.

Cloud Storage Case Study with a Real Estate Company

What is typical about a real estate company when it comes to storage need?

(1) Many mobile users.

Many employees need to go out to survey the properties, taking pictures and meeting potential buyers and sellers. These users need a solution to be able to access the property information from the field.

This is a typical use case for cloud storage – anywhere access.

(2) Sharing and Collaboration

It requires collaboration between the people back at the office and the people out in the field. They may need to share contract documents and property information.

This is a typical use case for cloud storage too – sharing and collaboration

(3) Outsourced IT department

Real estate companies are typical SMB companies that focus on the non-IT related business. They need IT infrastructure for the information sharing. However, they prefer ways to outsource IT work and reduce the IT related cost.

This fits the cloud computing paradigm shift.

(4) Multimedia Rich Data

Real estate needs to store many pictures and possibly 360 degree videos about the property. Employees need quick local rendering such as viewing the thumbnails of properties for better usability and productivity.

This fits the local + cloud hybrid use case.

As you see from the above 4 requirements, cloud storage is a very good fit for real estate companies.

Intel Hybrid Cloud and Cloud Storage

Nowadays, every computing technology has a cloud label and a cloud twist.

Last week, we attended an Intel Hybrid Cloud road show and saw an interesting twist of the local computing with a cloud management – the Intel Hybrid Cloud.

Happy New Year from Gladinet

It is Jan 1st, 2011! Happy new year to everyone that is interested in Cloud Storage and Gladinet!

Looking back to year 2010, Gladinet went from a single product (Cloud Desktop) to a suite of products, including CloudAFS (server product), Cloud Backup (backup product) and Cloud Space (management framework), in addition to Cloud Desktop 2.0 release.

As we learn from our customers and partners, an access solution is what people is looking for when it comes to cloud storage. People need on-premise access; people need off-premise access; people need backup solutions (a specialized access) and people need a central management portal. In year 2010, Gladinet has transformed products into a suite of Cloud Storage Access Solutions.

Looking forward to year 2011, version 3.0 is coming with 2-way synchronization and version control. The access suite will be more advanced with more interoperability between different products. The management framework will be more sophisticated to support different products.

We expect to make bigger contribution to the cloud storage fields in year 2011, with the Gladinet Cloud Storage Access Suite 3.0.