Unifying Storage
Clouds
July 2009

There are many Storage Clouds

And many Social Storage Clouds

At different Price Points
$2 p.m. + $15 per user $0.10 per GB
Storage Fees p.m. $3.95 - $6.95 Amazon
Per user p.m. S3
Market Jungle Box.net
Disk Mozy Mosso
Leader
Rackspace
$49.99
One time fee $0.15 per GB
Bucket Carbonite ADrive
Explorer $9.99 p.m. to
$19.99 p.m.DropBox $54.95 $6.95 –
Pricing to be p.a. $13.95 p.m.
announced Biz $24.99 p.m. $99 p.a.
Cloud Ind $9.99 p.m. MobileMe
Berry SugarSync
Cloud Clients Cloud Business Cloud Backup Cloud Storage

Our Technology Vision
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Data Integration / Data Access

The SMEStorage Platform
Channels Integration Services
File Share Email
Backup
Firefox
Plug-In
MS Office
Cloud Open Office
Sync CloudToolbar
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Email to
-Single Windows Windows Cloud
View Explorer Client Sync
Agent
Cloud
-Providing Windows ‘Groupware’
CFS REST API
context to Shell Integration
data File MetaData
Unification Layer / Cloud File System (CFS)
Indicates to
be delivered

Current Clouds Supported

Virtual Cloud(s) File System

Participation in social networks overlaps
 A file on SMEStorage
 Can be sync’d from any cloud
 Can be edited in Zoho online office
 Can be customised in Picnik image editor
 Can be shared on Twitter
 Can be streamed
using Yahoo Media Player
 etc etc

Having support for Multiple Clouds is an
enabler for:-
 Importing and Exporting Data from Different Clouds
 Syncing Clouds Automatically
 Having Cloud Fail-over – Primary & backup Clouds for HA of data
 Having a Single View

Major Challenges
 API
 Not all API’s created equal. Some easier to add than others. Some have no
API at all meaning that we have had to create our own
 Security
– Amazon S3 / Mosso have concept of Public Key /secret key which enables
access to service but not access to account details
– These are the exception rather than the rule
– No standard security model for Cloud Storage / Social Providers therefore we
are currently using Public Key / Secret Key for Cloud vendors, username and
password for clouds that support nothing lese, and assessing integrating
Oauth, and OpenID as a mechanism to provide users security for social
clouds.
– Anything we store we encrypt and store in the DB and use on a per session
basis. Also users can choose only to enter their username and password each
session, which is not stored.

SMEStorage API
 Is available from Google Code -
http://code.google.com/p/smestorage/
 API Test harness available at http://www.smestorage.com/apitest
 API provides a unified API for Clouds
 Can be used as a Service Provider Interface (SPI) to Cloud
Storage
 Has value added services such as file system features, email
backup, import/ export, Cloud Sync, and much more
 Reliable proven API. Our Firefox Plug-In, Windows Tooling and
Iphone application all use it.

Thank you
Ian Osborne
Email:Ian@thesmespace.com
Blog: www.thesmespace.com/blog
www.SMEStorage.com