Earlier this month, Rackspace announced the release of Rackspace Private Cloud Software, powered by OpenStack and code-named Alamo. The new offering is designed to make it easy for organizations to install, test and run a multi-node OpenStack-based private cloud environment. It is an offering designed for services providers and enterprises.

OpenStack has two components, compute and object storage. This article focuses on the object storage, code named swift, as it is related to building a team oriented file and folder sync and share solution, working together with the Rackspace Private Cloud Software.

File Sync & Share solutions are pretty common on the public cloud as one of the most common application of cloud storage. For example, Box and Dropbox are the most successful ones promoting file sync and share solution over public cloud. Many service providers will now look to OpenStack and also look for a dropbox-like or a box-like solution for their own private cloud,  OpenStack Object Storage implementation.

Gladinet Cloud provides the solution for these service providers or enterprises looking for a self-hosted file sync & share solution. In regards to private hosting, Gladinet Cloud has the following pieces of components

1. Gladinet Cloud Cluster

Gladinet Cloud Cluster is a multi-node scalable software service that is currently powering the www.gladinet.com. It is software on top of the Windows Web Platform (IIS/SQL/.NET/WCF) that provides additional services such as file sync and share on top of OpenStack instances next by. Gladinet Cloud Cluster is available in a Windows Web Platform deployment package that can be installed by Windows Web Platform Installer.

Here is a picture of Gladinet Cloud Cluster being installed by Web Platform Installer

Gladinet Cloud Cluster is a piece of vendor-neutral component that serves as the back-bone of the file sync & share service. All the branding and white-label options will be available from the Access Devices and Clients.

The configuration to connect and use OpenStack swift storage is done after the Gladinet Cloud Cluster is installed. You can config default accounts for users. You can even use API (programming interface) to associate users with different OpenStack account, if you so desire. To say it short, it is flexible.

2. We Browser Based Interface and Access Method

The web browser based interface is installed when the Gladinet Cloud Cluster is installed. It is based on the latest HTML5 and AJAX technology to provide rich and interactive user experience when it comes to work with files and folders. You can check out the list of features provided by the Gladinet Cloud here.

3. PC & Mac Access Clients

PC & Mac Client are separate pieces of components, compared to the Gladinet Cloud Cluster. Gladinet consulting provides re-branding services for the PC & Mac clients. The most important feature of the client is drive mapping. So you can access your files and folders from a locally mapped drive.

4. Mobile Apps – Access from Mobile Devices

Gladinet Cloud has iOS client, Android client. Blackberry Playbook app is coming soon too. All these app are white-label ready to connect to your private instance of Gladinet Cloud Cluster.

Your Gladinet Cloud Cluster, in turn, connects to your own private instance of OpenStack. Thus the whole solution is self-hosted by you and you will have full control of the data and the path of the data.

Related Posts

Gladinet Cloud Team Edition Feature List