Tag:

Cloud

A potential service provider’s take on CloudSystem

by Philip Sellers June 14, 2011

written by Philip Sellers

Day to day, I work for a telephone company, though we are really much more – we sell cable TV, wireless, landline, Internet, security and home automation. [Disclaimer – these are my views and not theirs.] We have tossed around the idea of becoming a public cloud provider more than once. Last week, during HP Discover, I got my first full view of how we might realistically do that. We are not currently a HP CloudSystem customer, but I could see it fitting our needs.

HP unwrapped CloudSystem during the Discover conference in Las Vegas. CloudSystem is a full stack solution from storage, to networking, to servers and software to enable the cloud, whether it be private, public (service provider) or hybrid. So, where to begin on discussing CloudSystems – lets start with a definition.

June 14, 2011 1 comment

Apple Cloud Home Tech

Steve Jobs to announce iCloud, demo OS X Lion, iOS 5 at WWDC

by Philip Sellers May 31, 2011

written by Philip Sellers

Next week, while I’m occupied at HP Discover in Las Vegas, Steve Jobs and company will be busy with their annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. And, as confirmed by Apple PR this morning, Jobs and Co. will be unveiling the latest iterations of its operating systems, Mac OS X Lion and iOS 5, as well as a new cloud service, iCloud. The inclusion of iCloud in the press release confirms months of rumors about the name of the new cloud offering, though what the service actually includes is still a mystery until 1pm on Monday.

Websites, such as Silicon Alley Insider and AppleInsider, have been reporting that iCloud will include a streaming music offering and have followed speculation and anonymous confirmation from music industry insiders that Apple has struck deals with three of the big four music companies for its cloud offering. What is yet to be seen is whether the iCloud offering will consume MobileMe, compliment it, or replace it all together. Speculation has run rampant that MobileMe will move to a reduced rate, free even, though all will be seen after the keynote.

Mac OS X Lion was previously demonstrated and a partial list of features and upgrades were shown at last year’s “Back to the Mac” event. Lion is touted as the release where many iOS features were incorporated back into the Mac platform which gave birth to iOS, including autosave, instant-resume, full screen apps, the launchpad, and the Mac App Store which launched in January. Lion also bundles the Mac OS X Server features formerly released as a separate software package, opening new possibilities to power home and business users at no additional cost.

Latest rumors indicate that Lion will be released through the Mac App Store, though that is still to be confirmed. In addition to new distribution, the new release also appears to include a number of UI refinements which has been the case in each iteration of Mac OS X since its initial release.

Much of what is known about Mac OS X Lion has been divulged from developers who received pre-release versions of the software through the Apple Developers program. On the other hand, iOS5 and its features should be surprise for attendees and watchers. The new version of iOS has been kept under close guard and very little concrete information is available about what it may include. But, with the launch of iCloud, its easy to speculate that both iOS5 and OS X Lion will have deep ties to the new service.

May 31, 2011 0 comments

Cloud Datacenter Personal Storage

SafeCopy: My answer to the Mozy changes?

by Philip Sellers February 10, 2011

written by Philip Sellers

I got a comment on my recent Mozy post which offered SafeCopy as an alternative to Mozy. When my current subscription to Mozy ends, I’m certainly in the market for a more favorable solution to meet my needs. Mozy’s new plans, in my opinion, do not offer enough space for the price they charge and they limit the number of computers that can connect to an account . I’d never heard of SafeCopy and so I headed to their website to check them out.

First, SafeCopy looks a lot like Mozy on the surface. I immediately see that they are cross platform with both Windows and Mac compatibility, but they also list iPhone. Digging a bit deeper, I have found that SafeCopy also has a search engine feature for finding and retrieving your data online and thus all your files are from the iPhone or other mobile phone. I have to say, the Google-style search for my backup is cool. The online demo shows that you can see versioning of the individual files, also. Like Mozy, the backups are encrypted. SafeCopy uses 448-bit Blowfish encryption according to their website.

February 10, 2011 0 comments

Apple Datacenter Home Tech Storage

Apple’s Mac Mini server is popular, what could be next?

by Philip Sellers January 8, 2010

written by Philip Sellers

When Apple last refreshed the Mac Mini line, it introduced a new version with Mac OS X Server preloaded that also dropped its optical drive in lieu of dual hard drives. This new configuration is quite popular according to a recent post on AppleInsider. That leads me to wonder and speculate about what could be next? I’ve speculated about a home server before…

Mac OS X Server has been incrementally growing in features and capabilities with each major release. Its market penetration and target has largely been towards Mac heavy businesses. It has packaged several new products in the last two releases to help Mac organizations reduce their dependence on Microsoft solutions – new products like iCal and Address Book server as well as a mail server, all of which are based heavily on standards which is great for interoperability across all client platforms.

But, with the introduction of the Mac Mini server, Apple has tilted the OS X Server offering more towards small businesses (who might not purchase a Mac Pro or X-Serve to run OS X Server). It also could be used for some home users — could this be the first, quiet step towards the home server for Apple? I don’t have to answer and this is purely speculation, but let me continue.

January 8, 2010 1 comment