Welcome!

Big Data Journal Authors: Jeremy Geelan, David Smith, Sebastian Kruk, Elizabeth White, Patrick Burke

Blog Feed Post

Use Amazon S3 as Your File Server

“I want to build a file server in EC2, storage use Amazon S3, user management integrated with Active Directory, and publish network shares with CIFS”.

As Amazon VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) getting more and more popular and becoming the default for EC2 servers, we are seeing more and more requests like this for Amazon S3.

As we will show you in this article, it is not hard to implement this with Gladinet Cloud solutions. There are two hurdles for you to overcome, which Gladinet Cloud does it for you.

Problems to Solve

(a) Amazon S3 is not  CIFS (Microsoft Network Share) protocol, so you will need an Amazon S3 to CIFS protocol converter. Otherwise, you can’t map a drive directly to Amazon S3.

(b) CIFS protocol is a LAN protocol, suitable for local area network. Performance wise, it wasn’t designed for wide area network (AKA Internet). The CIFS protocol is too chatty, involving too much requests and acknowledgements. It is slow to stream files over the Internet from Amazon data center to your office.

How Gladinet Solves this Problem

(a) Gladinet Cloud was built around a drive mapping technology. From Gladinet Cloud Desktop client to Gladinet Cloud File Server client, you will see drive mapping technology converting Amazon S3 storage into a storage space that you can view and use from Windows Explorer with a drive letter.

Behind the scene, it is a Cloud Storage Service (in this case, Amazon S3) to CIFS protocol converter and vise versa.

image

(b) Gladinet Cloud Server is the product that on one hand, runs locally as a file server, presenting CIFS protocol locally to the Microsoft Network. On the other hand, translating CIFS protocol to Amazon S3 commands over the WAN (Internet) to Amazon EC2 data center. It also does necessary local caching to improve performance. To say it in another word, it is a WAN accelerator for CIFS when it comes to using Amazon S3.  Gladinet Cloud Server is part of the Gladinet Cloud Team Edition or Gladinet Cloud Enterprise Edition.

Extending the CIFS Sharing

If Gladinet Cloud Server can get the job done, why not use it as a stand-alone product? Why do you need Gladinet Cloud Team Edition or Gladinet Cloud Enterprise Edition?

image

The reason is that the Cloud Storage and Internet enables wider use cases than the traditional Microsoft Network. Traditionally, inside a Microsoft Network, you can have users collaborate over a Microsoft File Server. However, in the cloud storage era, you can also access the files and folders over web browser clients and mobile clients, in addition to the traditional Windows Desktop clients.

In the past, Microsoft clients such as Windows XP, Windows 7/8 dominates the business use cases. As long as you have a Microsoft PC/laptop, you can use Microsoft network share to collaborate with users. But nowadays, you have web browsers that are closing in on native desktop user experience, and you have iOS and Android devices that you wish to do online collaboration with.

This is when the Gladinet Cloud Team Edition and Gladinet Cloud Enterprise Edition bring the additional online collaboration features. This way, the Amazon S3 cloud storage becomes your file server in the cloud era, and your Windows PC, iOS and Android devices all becoming the client devices to your cloud file server.

Next Step

Visit Gladinet home page www.gladinet.com for a Team Edition account or install the Enterprise product to check it out.

For more Gladinet Cloud Server related information, please visit www.gladinet.com/CloudServer/

Read the original blog entry...

More Stories By Jerry Huang

Jerry Huang, an engineer and entrepreneur, founded Gladinet with his close friends and is pursuing interests in the cloud computing. He has published articles on the company blog as well as following up on the company twitter activities. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1998 and has lived in West Palm Beach, Florida since.

Cloud Expo Breaking News
In his session at 12th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo New York [June 10-13, 2013], Intel's Chris Black will review the background of Apache Hadoop, its application, and methods to accelerate data system clusters with Intel SSD technology. The session will overview the genius of Hadoop and provide an overview of the ecosystem landscape. Cloud Expo/Big Data Expo delegates will learn how the Hadoop framework and SSD technology augment cloud data systems ranging from analytics to on-line transaction pro...
One of the most compelling promises of the cloud is that you can pull out a credit card and be working in minutes. No purchase orders to fill out, no equipment to wait for on the loading dock. Just instant access to the resources you need, when you need them. But accessibility comes at a price, and an unintentional consequence may be that you create yet another orphaned identity silo. Enterprise IT has spent years consolidating its mishmash of directories, only to discover that cloud now threate...
SYS-CON Events announced today that Wowrack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. Wowrack’s core expertise lies in high-availability Private and Public Cloud IaaS Hosting Solutions. Wowrack provides a true Hybrid service – where business release all IT management and hardware provisioning – taking the data center and server system administrative headaches off our customer’s shoulders. ...
As enterprises deploy private IaaS clouds into production they are reevaluating their future application delivery models. SUSE and WSO2 believe that private PaaS will leverage the automation and scalability of Private IaaS solutions, such as OpenStack-based SUSE Cloud, to deliver the secure, standardized development environments that will make migrating to an agile, serviceoriented delivery model possible. In their session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Chris Haddad, VP of Technology Ev...
“Open source has always provided a number of benefits, including easing adoption costs, propagating a better understanding of the technology, and allowing for faster evolution and commercialization of products and services based on it,” noted Terry Woloszyn, Founder & CEO, Leeward Security Ltd., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This is clearly evident with the OpenStack and CloudStack,” Woloszyn continued, “and others that have been quickly commercialized as...
Organizations across the world are increasingly starting to see the benefits of moving more and more services to the cloud. The focus on the cost-saving potential of cloud is rapidly shifting to completely transforming the business with cloud. As organizations are investing enormous sums on technology they are starting to realize that in order to maximize the return on investment and accelerate the business transformation process the first area of focus should be people. By ensuring the organiza...
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Dave Eichorn, Global Data Center Practice Head at Zensar, will share a case study describing how a utility services company handled the migration of its Microsoft platform to the cloud. Challenged with the time-consuming task of opening operations out of temporary offices, this company struggled with the need to simultaneously access data that was accumulated from a vast amount of data-intensive jobs. Zensar migrated the company’s application ...
You're getting pitched every day from your legacy enterprise software and hardware vendors about "cloud." They're doing an amazing job of convincing your CIO and CTO about what cloud is and how you should use it. The reality is they're defending their shrinking market share and keeping you on the legacy treadmill for as long as they can by selling you solutions that aren't "cloud." In her session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Niki Acosta, Cloud Evangelista for Rackspace, will talk thro...
SYS-CON Events announced today that OpenStack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. OpenStack software controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed by a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface. OpenStack powers some of the most widely-used SaaS app...
Many have heard of OAuth but are unsure of how it might apply to their business. In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Alistair Farquharson, CTO of SOA Software, will describe how OAuth can be used to facilitate certain business models and simplify the sharing of private data. Alistair Farquharson is a visionary industry veteran focused on using disruptive technologies to drive business growth and improve efficiency and agility within organizations. As the CTO of SOA Software A...