Comments on: ABC Nightlife computers: What is cloud computing?

By: Robert van Aalst

Robert van Aalst — Thu, 05 May 2011 05:01:19 +0000

Hi Paul,
I have recently (late last year) taken over the running of a small not for profit government funded regional development agency. When I joined I noticed that the small office (of roughly 3 people) was using a centralised server at least 10 years old. No one in the office new anything about it and the organisation was paying an IT service company $500 per month to maintain it. The centralised server (unix) didn’t even handle the mail server – this was done off site at the IT providers data storage location.
The first thing I did was to cancel the $6,000 pa contract, updated desk top operating systems (but not all) to Windows 7, turned the energy sucking server off (after copying the data), bought a wireless N router modem for less than $200, a NAS 1GB that plugged directly into the modem/router also for less than $200 and signed up with Google Apps. All our mail now uses that platform, all data is stored in the Google cloud and I am paying less than $500 per annum instead of $6,000 plus. Additionally, I ditched our old style Web Site (Web 0.5) and created a WordPress site, using a consultant designer, for less than $5,000.
The beauty of cloud computing in an office lies in the sharing of documents and the ability for several people to work simultaneously on the same document. No duplication or version control issues. Additionally, I have several employees that are parents who may occasionally have child caring issues or indeed sick kids to look after. With cloud computing they can log on from home as simply as they can at work. Indeed, I have said to all the staff that if they have no strong need to be in the office I don’t mind them working remotely (two of them live over an hour away).
I have a few more steps to take though… firstly, convincing one person that Microsoft isn’t the only word processing package that works – mind you it still is far better than Google Docs, or Open office, but I make do with those myself. Secondly, I want to try and transition our accounts from the costly MYOB through to an online Open Source package that can be hosted on Google Apps (similarly for a CMS), and thirdly I would like to ditch our clunky phone system for a VOIP system.
Whilst I am a strong advocate for Cloud Computing (and the flexibility it brings) and FOSS, I am mindful that it is a journey to bring people along and people often need convincing of the benefits. I am always happy to sing the benefits though!!
Cheers
Robert

By: Paul Wallbank

Paul Wallbank — Thu, 05 May 2011 03:55:13 +0000

In reply to John Butler.

Thanks for that John, providing a mapped drive makes ZumoDrive a useful feature.

My guess is the database links failed when one or the other databases couldn’t connect. That’s probably more a limitation of Microsoft Access than ZumoDrive.

By: John Butler

John Butler — Wed, 04 May 2011 11:57:42 +0000

Hi Paul/listeners/Tony,

I’m using ZumoDrive as my cloud and have 2Gb of file storage free!!!!

But I do have some concerns. I’m not confident of their security and I have experienced data loss (MS Access – saved records lost somewhere) and lockups (MS Excel).

I have 2 desktop PCs – one XP and one Win7 – and one XP laptop. The XP desktop is where the “original” files reside. I have “linked” some folders to ZumoDrive and I find this very convenient. Those where I had important (to me) databases were linked but are no longer!

I suspect the problem I’m having with data loss is due to some replication – either in their servers or perhaps in the caches on my multiple machines. I’ve discussed this with their IT help folks but all they can say is install the latest version. Doh!

Anyhow. I guess if it’s free, what more can I say. I’d warn others to carefully monitor valuable (to them) data and resist putting anything of a personal nature up in the clouds.

I like the way ZumoDrive has client software that mounts the cloud as a logical drive (Z: Drive – what else!) on my PC but this is a problem if you run profiles because the client will try to log on the other profile users to my account. There is a way around this but it requires a bit of tinkering and if users find the executable for ZumoDrive they can still get to my files.

My recommendation:
ZumoDrive is acceptable for a home set-up where no one is likely to be snooping but dubious for multi-user PCs or small business unless it was being used for encrypted backups.

Cheers,
JohnB, Lalor Park