Google Drive Arrived: Cloud Storage And Privacy/Security

Google Drive Schematic. Source: android-schweiz.ch

Cloud Storage is not any longer just for the big guys.

This morning when I updated my Android phone a new app was loaded called Google Drive. It explained that it was part of Google Docs and I downloaded it.

It is actually a web-based storage tightly integrated with Google Docs. One might compare it with DropBox and other online storage services. It provides 5GB free of charge and will allow up to 16 TB(!) (at a price of approx. US$ 50,– per TB and month).

Image via CrunchBase

But Google Drive seems to be more than just online storage. It turns Google Docs into a seamless Office Suite for collaboration.

This means that Google joined the ranks of many other online storage providers but with the generous offer of free 5GB. It will work similar to the DropBox model where you best install a local client for your platform. Google Drive clients are available for Windows, Mac, Android and a version for iOS will come soon. Linux users can use the web interface for the time being.

Sundar Pichai, Senior Vice President, Google Chrome & Apps is quoted in ZDnet.com:

“Drive is designed to work harmoniously with all the products you use – whether Google products or third-party service. You can share your photos on Google Drive + and will soon be able to attach documents directly into your emails Drive Gmail. Drive is intended to be an open platform, so we work with many third-party developers, allowing you to do things such as sending faxes, edit videos and create models directly from Drive website. To install these applications, visit the Chrome Web Store and follow the events for more useful applications to come. It is only the beginning of Google Drive, many developments are coming. Stay tuned!”

Data Gobbler Google? Image via czyslansky.net

To start Google Drive you need to have a Google account.

But before you use it make sure you read the fine print.

@bontoJR quoted on android-schweiz.ch from the terms and conditions:

“Your Content in our Services: When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide licence to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.”

For a discussion on Google and privacy look at my blog on  Google’s new privacy policy and read the update on “Tom Henderson’s Divorce From Google.”

For all those of you that would rather not have a Google account or refuse to use this service based on Google’s terms and conditions there are plenty of alternatives. Let me start with my favorite:

Wuala today announced that it increases its free storage limit from 2GB to 5GB.

And if you care about security and privacy Wuala might still be your best option.

I know Wuala since the time in 2009 when they won the Swiss ICT Award where I have the honor to serve in the jury. Their concept is fascinating and highly regarded. Many reviewers praised the security of their approach. Matt Smollinger — to quote just one — wrote in his review about Wuala:

“Security is very important to Wuala, which dedicates a whole page and several FAQ sections to the subject. Files are encrypted using 128-bit AES, with signatures of those files generated as 2048-bit RSA keys. Files are checked for integrity using 256-bit SHA hash codes. The AES encryption is generated from your password, which Wuala does not store. I’m assuming they store a SHA hash of it however, since you have to authenticate somehow.

“Wuala’s security is probably the most thorough I’ve seen yet. However I would say they could step up to 256-bit AES to toughen things up even more. However, 128-bit AES is ridiculously difficult to hack, so it should be fine with the signatures and integrity checks in play.”

You can also consider the newly remodeled Dropbox, Microsoft SkyDrive, or other cloud storage providers. For a review of further online storage options see for instance “2012 Best Online Storage Service Comparisons and Reviews” or “Online Storage & Data Backup” (Cnet).

What do you think — how much longer will we have local disk drives? Will we use just local cache for those moments in tunnels or airplanes?

Will our grandchildren ask us one day: “Did you really have disk storage at home in those days?“

If you find this article useful you can “like” it and/or share it with one of the social network buttons below. You are also cordially invited to comment below.

Related articles

• Google Drive to launch this week (onsoftware.en.softonic.com)
• Google Launches Google Drive, An Online File Storage Service (laughingsquid.com)
• Google Drive is real: here’s what it means (gigaom.com)
• Google launches long-rumoured online storage service Google Drive (business.financialpost.com)
• Google Drive – Store Files, Share Files, and Talk About Them (freetech4teachers.com)
• Google Drive Goes for a Spin [HANDS-ON] (mashable.com)
• SlashGear 101: What is Google Drive? (slashgear.com)
• Google Drive Officially Launched {Video} (c24.co.uk)
• Free storage for you: Google Drive to arrive today (hazimsos.wordpress.com)
• Meet Google Drive: Specs and Screenshots (allthingsd.com)
• Software Review- Google Drive versus Dropbox (decisionstats.com)
• Google Drive vs Dropbox vs Box and more (clixto7.com)
• Google Drive launches, specs revealed (thetechblock.com)
• Google Drive launched, 5GB free, replaces Google Docs (androidauthority.com)
• UPDATE: Google Drive – Cloud Speicher Dienst ist gestartet! (Android Schweiz)

How to change IT from 1.0 to 2.0

Diagram showing economics of cloud computing versus traditional IT, including capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Joe Robens recently published an article named WORKING IN AN IT 1.0 WORLD – DAY 5 #B03.

He has a list of recommendations how to change your corporate information technology from the last to the current century.

I would like to share his recommendations with you.

• Embrace BYO (Bring Your Own)
  • Get your policy in place now! You need to understand this progressive user group to service them better.
  • Your internal customers will challenge and push your applications in the right direction and in many cases will pay, in part, for it themselves!
• Migrate systems to the cloud (where possible)
  • Many vendors are moving their serves to the cloud. The age of enterprise license models and paying for people to not use your applications is over. Talk to your vendors about migration planning.
  • The sooner you understand how to operate in the SaaS (Software as a Service) space the sooner you can gain the cost of scale. SaaS is not going anywhere because “I have a device in my pocket” that demands you move your services there.
• Revisit your Data-centre needs
  • As a single entity IT operation your buying power is very limited. You are also killing your OPEX (Operating Expenses) with power experts, networks experts & configuration managers. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) gives you the cost of scale and through virtualization you no longer need all the employees to manage your infrastructure.
  • IaaS service providers have buying power. They have power experts, network techs and configuration gurus. You pay as you need it and much like SaaS are not paying for what you do not use.
• Develop applications in cloud
  • This is moderately new thinking but as the demand to have device agnostic application presses against IT, having a PaaS (Platform as a Service) to deliver from assists with control and access to your applications.
  • You can add this stack to the cloud offering and leverage cost of scale.
  • The reality of delivering applications into the hands of the end users can be realised.
• Embrace mobility
  • A mobility revolution began in 2010. With smart phones, tablets a ultra-portable laptops the idea of a physical desktop is slipping away. The hardware in these devices are more than substantial to deal with web apps and native apps.
  • Planning your IT roadmap from a mobility centric offering will help in the long-term adoption of IT as a service provider.
• Realign IT roles
  • The painful truth is that if you want to manage systems you need to change your job to a cloud based service provider.
  • People who manage these systems should now manage the vendor/service providers.

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So far Joe’s recommendations. Do you agree with him? Which recommendations would you add?

Related articles

• SaaS, PaaS and IaaS: three cloud models; three very different risks (zdnet.com)
• Specialization tests cloud computing SPI model (news.cnet.com)
• Top 5 Questions to Ask When Buying Public Cloud IaaS (bluelock.com)
• Cloud Security Monitoring for IaaS, PaaS, SaaS (blogs.gartner.com)
• Get to the cloud (and save money)! (manifestvisionsolutions.com)
• Knowledge, due diligence are the keys to using the cloud (econsultancy.com)

Another Strong Personal Vote For the Cloud

HTC Sensation. Credit: Partial screen shot from HTC flash video at http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-sensation/

Friday (I seem to be very lucky with Friday’s–see my earlier vote for the cloud) my “smart”-phone spontaneously started rebooting.

It had done this before. This behavior is inconvenient for the user since one does not realize that the phone is quietly sitting in the pocket waiting for the pin to be entered.

During that time the phone of course does not receive calls, which could be a relieve to some. But I actually have a mobile phone to receive calls.

Another little issue was that the phone refused to sync my contacts and calendars. The “Accounts and Sync” app refused to start and consistently gave me a “Force close.” Since I rely on having my calendar and contacts in sync on my devices this was a real drawback.

A Strong Personal Vote For The Cloud

My change from a 2008 15" MacBook Pro to a 2011 13" i5 MacBook Pro. Image via Wikipedia

On Friday, January 13, 2012 at 13:00 (yes, really!) I closed the cover of my MacBook Pro. This was when I had seen the computer alive for the last time.

When I re-opened the flap nothing happened. Going through all the measures one can take in cases like this did not help. It remained dead.

The friendly Apple-authorized service point gave me the grim diagnosis after several days: the motherboard was corroded due to a previous water damage for which it had been at the same place some 3 years earlier. A glass of water had flooded the system when it was a few weeks old. Seems that at that time some impending corrosion damage was overlooked. There was no warranty on that repair of 2008. And AppleCare had expired last fall.

How to Back Up Your Social Media Accounts

Image at http://www.glasbergen.com

Now that we learned to make the occasional backup of the files on our computers using external hard disks and — the audacious ones among us — using cloud services (BTW: check out Wuala for backup. Files get encrypted on your machine and will be packet-distributed to their storage computers. Like DropBox, just safer) here comes the next backup pattern: Backing up your Social Media.

Lou Dubois (@lou_dubois) explains in Inc.com:

New EU Directive Might Reshape the Clouds

Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship will strengthen consumer rights and protection in the cloud . (Image at http://www.experian.it)

As reported in Silicon.de, in Experian.it and in other sources, the European Commission is planning to release a new directive on data protection, which will affect the Cloud Computing industry. Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenships is planning to update the Data Protection Directive. The Data Protection Directive was first introduced in 1995, and a lot of new challenges for personal Data Protection have appeared, from social networks to cloud computing and the current digitalization of public data assets.

Experian reports: The process to update the Directive has just started. Over 160 responses were collected to a public consultation that lasted until December 2009. These responses were crafted by citizens, businesses and other organizations and public authorities. The objective of this public consultation is to gather “views on the new challenges for personal data protection, in particular in the light of new technologies and globalisation”, and what steps should be taken to overcome those challenges. Now Reding plans to present a first draft of the legislation by autumn this year.

In her speech in January she outlined the main issues to be covered in the updated directive (quoted from Experian):

OSBF: Opening Clouds

Image via CrunchBase

The Open Source Business Foundation e.V., the European network for the Open Source Industry, just launched an “Open Cloud Business Initiative” (OCBI). The goal of the OCBI is to promote the principle of openness, which is responsible for the success of the Open Source Software movement, in the area of the cloud: the future lies in the Open Cloud – especially in a business context.

The Open Source Business Foundation eV (OSBF) lays out the following six principles under their “Open Cloud Future Initiative”:

Gartner: Difficult Times For the CIO

Gene Hall as pictured on research-live.com

Silicon.de reported on the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2011 in Orlando:

Gartners CEO Gene Hall warned the CIO’s of the four winds that blow at the CIO simultaneously. CIO’s will have to bundle up to weather the coming storm.

The four winds Hall talked about are four new disruptive technologies, which will change profoundly the IT landscape and the life of CIO’s. These are:

1. Social Media — with 1.8 bio users (20% of world population) it is out of its infancy. High time that CIO’s look into integrating this into their enterprise IT infrastructure
2. Mobility – the explosive dissemination of iPhones, iPads, Android devices sends a clear signal. “Bring your own device” is becoming rather the rule than the exception. Customers and partners will access your systems more and more on these mobile devices. The development of apps for the mobile devices will be a factor of four above the development for desktop systems
3. Cloud Computing – not yet mainstream but with the mega players starting their offerings as cloud services this technology will prevail. Cloud computing is the industrialisation of IT.
4. New Analytics – the data warehouse is dead, long live the diverse content management systems with their searchability.

Greatest Threats to Cloud Security

Evening Cloud over Podgorica, Montenegro (photo taken by the author)

Experts explain greatest threats to cloud security. (NetworkWorld)

The article starts:

Cloud security threats come in all shapes and sizes, so we asked eight experts to weigh in on what they see as the top threat to cloud security. The answers run the gamut, but in all cases, our cloud security panelists believe that these threats can be addressed.

It covers the following issues (written by named expert)

Clouds Shine Through the Fog: CloudBursting

Image by Miran Rijavec via Flickr

This article was recently shared on LinkedIn: Future of cloud computing … more clouds. Seriously. | LinkedIn.

It describes Forrester‘s take on the concept of virtual virtual (virtual**2) machines where users can move apps and data easily and freely between cloud service providers (a.k.a. CloudBursting). It also discusses purchase models of such services from brokers.

The lack of standardization is still in the way of the rapid adoption of such models but too early standardization might just be in the way of progress, as Sixto Ortiz Jr. writes in his article “The Problem with Cloud-Computing Standardization” in the July 2011 issue of the IEEE publication Computer.

Is Cloud Computing just getting foggier? Are we already in the middle of the cloud? Can we see the clouds through the fog?

Related articles

• Future of cloud computing … more clouds. Seriously. (gigaom.com)
• The Problem with Cloud-Computing Standardization (IEEE Computer 7/2011)
• Cloud computing: Over 30% in energy savings — Cleantech News and Analysis (this blog)
• Cloud Computing: From Designer Clothes To Prêt-à-Porter (this blog)

Cloud computing: Over 30% in energy savings — Cleantech News and Analysis

Image via Wikipedia

Yes–there are issues with security, availability, and privacy in the cloud, but these will have to be managed (cf. some of the links below). The energy aspect is usually not brought to the table in the current discussions on Cloud Computing.

But it is an important aspect (and added benefit) of cloud computing–the achievable savings in energy consumption. Our computing centers are using a significant amount of energy today. Anything that can be done to reduce energy consumption will benefit our planet and cut costs of operation. See the report quoted below.

Cloud computing could lead to billions in energy savings — Cleantech News and Analysis.

Related articles

• Privacy & Security in Cloud Computing [Jon Claiborne] (ecademy.com)
• New Study: Cloud Computing Can Dramatically Reduce Energy Costs and Carbon Emissions (prnewswire.com)
• Cloud Computing: From Designer Clothes To Prêt-à-Porter (ponderingtechnology.wordpress.com)
• Securing the Cloud: Cloud Computer Security Techniques and Tactics (365.rsaconference.com)

Cloud Computing: From Designer Clothes To Prêt-à-Porter

Image via Wikipedia

Today I read the June issue of the “Informatik Spektrum” (Organ of the German Informatics Society). It has a contribution by Prof. Gunter Dueck titled “Cloudwirbel” (cloud vortex). Gunter Dueck regularly publishes a column in this periodical under the header “DUECK-ß-INSIDE, many with a good sense of humor. Here a few of his thoughts on the future of cloud computing:

• Cloud Computing is growing extremely fast but the press is repeating the argument that it is only a hype and that it is not secure
• The textile industry adapted to the fact that washing machines will wash with 30˚, 60˚, 90˚C (in Fahrenheit this reads cold, warm, hot) and produces fabrics accordingly
• Industry around the car provided an opportunity for companies like Carglass, Pit-Stop etc. They pick the easy tasks from car maintenance (batteries, tires, exhaust, brake shoes, windows), offer these for a very competitive price and leave the complex stuff to the other garages
• We are observing similar trends in the medical field where semi-automatized labs perform immunizations, blood tests, dental checkups at low-cost
• IT has this kind of revolution still ahead of itself. IT professionals will fight this development since it will cost some of their jobs
• Industrialization will come to IT. Services will come with price tags. CFO’s will look at public clouds and ask why the own IT is so much more expensive
• Pay-per-use will allow to rent an application for one-time usage at a fraction of cost
• The cultural shock: IT will turn into a self-service store or mall offering apps with price tags

He finishes the article by quoting himself at a recent podium discussion: “Make up your mind and invest the extraordinary amount of EUR 10.- to order a full computer in a cloud and try it out. Make contact with this ‘extraterrestrial,’ feel how secure or insecure it feels once your data are up there. Feels similar to e-Banking? Stop with the Angst! Be prepared.”