Online Services: Storage and Collaboration Meet in the Cloud The Benefits of Online Storage and Collaboration Services Gerry Blackwell
Most business owners need a safe place to store and easily access vital data, and many also need to share documents — or collaborate on their creations — with remote colleagues, customers, or suppliers. If that's true for you, the solution could be in the cloud.
That's cloud, singular — geek lingo for the part of a network that you're connected to and that provides essential services, but isn't directly under your control. Web 2.0-style "cloud services" or SaaS, including online backup and collaboration, may be the solution to any number of storage challenges your small business may face.
Companies such as Hewlett-Packard with its Upline, Egnyte Inc., and Box.net offer very inexpensive and easy-to-use, pay-by-the-month (or year) solutions that combine data storage, document collaboration, and in the case of Upline and Egnyte, automated online backup. In effect, they give you a virtual online file server.
Benefits
For as little as five dollars a month for unlimited storage capacity (Upline), you can use Web-based software that lets you securely upload files to the service provider's computers and then make them available to other people over the Web. No more e-mailing documents back and forth. No more transporting backup tapes to a safe offsite location.
With some services, collaborators with the right permissions can edit documents and re-store them on the online file server. Some keep track of and automatically preserve earlier versions and even notify you of changes as they're made.
Your files are always available, from anywhere you or authorized collaborators have access to the Internet, anytime of the day. If your office is flooded or burns down, if you can't get to the office because of snow, or if your computer crashes and dies and you have to replace it, your data is still available when using one of these services.
Consultant John Sloan, a senior research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group, a firm that focuses on small and medium-size business IT issues, urges small companies to exercise due diligence if they're considering such services, but he believes they can deliver real benefits.
"Right now," Sloan said, "I see a definite value proposition in services like this for small businesses, especially ones that don't have the size yet to invest in their own [computer and network] infrastructure, and don't have an IT department."
Virtualization
Even if a small business is big enough to have an IT department and its own network infrastructure, these services are a lot less expensive, according to Egnyte co-founder Vineet Jain. He estimates the annual cost of an onsite file server that employees could access over the Internet at $7,000. In comparison, for a five-person company, the cost per year for Egnyte is $900.
This kind of service may become much more prevalent, Sloan believes. For now it makes particularly good sense for very small businesses, but he sees a trend toward what he calls virtualization that may make such services attractive to companies of just about any size.
"As virtualization becomes more commonplace both on the side of storage and [computer] processing, I think we will see the IT-less IT dept become feasible," he said. "So as these services become more mature and as people get more comfortable with the idea, I can see them potentially moving up the food chain."
While all the services we looked at are quick tout their ease of use and security — data is encrypted during upload to the server or download back to a user's computer — each offers a slightly different value proposition.
Upline
HP's Upline, the price leader, offers plans for individual home or home office users, and multi-license plans for families and small businesses. They all provide unlimited storage capacity and the same set of services: automated online backup, sharing of files with individuals or groups, and publishing files to the Web.
The lowest-price, single-license plan provides unlimited storage for five dollars a month — that's a pretty good deal. The professional version, which includes three licenses, expandable to 100, costs about $300 a year.
The backup service is generally good, with one significant flaw — Upline won't back up Microsoft Outlook PST (database) files.
You start by telling it which folders to back up and indicating which types of files you want to include or exclude. After it has completed a first backup, Upline watches the folders you've selected and uploads any file that changes. You can set it to perform backups at intervals starting from as little as 15 minutes.
The sharing features are rudimentary compared to some other services. You can e-mail a link to people that allows them to download a file. If you change that file, Upline automatically e-mails previous recipients a link to the new version.
