the personal cloud goes to the dogs - dell emc...feb 14, 2012 · that private cloud. the iomega...
TRANSCRIPT
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THE PERSONAL CLOUD GOES TO THE DOGS
Chad DeMatteisSolutions ArchitectEMC Corporation
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Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3 Requirements and Constraints ................................................................................................... 3 Possible Solutions ...................................................................................................................... 6 Compare Solutions .................................................................................................................... 8 Why a Personal Cloud solution? ................................................................................................ 9 Configuring the Iomega .............................................................................................................11 Setting up Cloud .......................................................................................................................12 Adding Users ............................................................................................................................15 Adding Groups ..........................................................................................................................16 Installing Client..........................................................................................................................18 Client Functions ........................................................................................................................21 Issues Encountered ..................................................................................................................22 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................22 Appendix A: References ...........................................................................................................24 Appendix B: Performance App install ........................................................................................24 Appendix C: Copy Job for backups ...........................................................................................26 Appendix D: Mobile App ............................................................................................................27 Disclaimer: The views, processes, or methodologies published in this article are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect EMC Corporation’s views, processes, or methodologies.
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Introduction
Gartner describes the personal cloud as “a transformational force that will reshape the
consumer digital landscape. From one perspective, the personal cloud reflect users' expectation
that their content, applications and services will be available to them on any device, at any time,
in any place.”[1] This transformational force is not only limited to an individual consumer level,
but also can enable organizations with finite resources to share content easily and
economically. As a volunteer for Louie’s Legacy[2], a non-profit animal rescue, I had the
opportunity to provide a personal cloud solution hosted on the Iomega StorCenter IX2[3] that
allowed employees and volunteers to manage and share files.
I will review the process I took to evaluate the requirements of the rescue, choose the best file
sharing solution, and implement the solution.
Requirements and Constraints
Louie’s Legacy Animal Rescue (LLAR) is a non-profit organization with a presence in Cincinnati,
OH and Staten Island, NY that rescues animals from “high-kill” shelters. The rescue process
involves pulling animals from shelters and placing them into foster homes or in LLAR’s kennel
until adopted. LLAR provides all medical care for the animal and screens potential adopters
through an application process. The primary method of finding adopters is via online promotion
and adoption events. The organization is funded through adoption fees, donations, fundraisers,
and grants. All of these processes require record keeping and generate data in both paper and
digital formats.
As LLAR grew, so did the data generated; file and data communication were shared via fax,
mail, email, and shared drives. Emily Gear, director of Louie’s Legacy, needed a cost effective
way to centralize storage and sharing of these files. The storage would not only be shared in the
Cincinnati office but also with the rescue in Staten Island and with various volunteers and
employees at remote locations.
Requirements and constraints can be summarized as follows:
Requirements
Share files between PCs in Cincinnati office
Share files between PCs located in multiple geographic locations
File and folder permission management
User management for 5-10 users
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Storage for pictures, video, and scanned documents to cover approximately 1000
adoptions per year for the next 3 years.
Storage for pictures, video, and scanned documents to cover 2009, 2010, 2011, and 1st
half of 2012 adoptions and operations.
Constraints
Limited/variable budget
Cincinnati office uses DSL: 5 Mbps download; 768 Kbps upload
Periodic DSL outages
Once the overall goal was identified, a detailed understanding of requirements could be defined.
Storage requirements for the rescue were calculated by determining the number of animal
adoptions and the digital “footprint” generated from a typical adoption. The entire adoption
process requires photos, videos, and scanned medical and adoption documents for each
animal. This includes not only future adoptions but also storing historical data from the
beginning of the rescue. An animal’s digital “footprint” is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1
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Along with the adoption digital footprint, there will be documents stored to support LLAR
operations such as financial, tax, and procedural documents up to approximately 350 per month
at 0.5MB each. By adding these amounts to the adoption footprint, combined with the number of
adoptions, we can determine the total storage needed (Figure 2).
Figure 2
The next step was to understand the I/O breakdown, i.e. reads versus writes. The heaviest
writes will be in Cincinnati as that is the headquarters; the remote sites would be about equal on
the number of reads and writes. The I/Os per second on average will be low as there will be
bursts of writes and reads weekly following adoption events and new rescues. The files to be
stored on the shared storage will mostly be static; pictures, scanned images, and video.
Lastly, the existing infrastructure needed to be reviewed. Figure 3 shows the existing
infrastructure with files shared via fax, mail, email, and files stored on local hard drives on
desktops and laptops. This resulted in files being located in various locations leading to
duplicates and multiple versions.
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Figure 3
Possible Solutions
After documenting the requirements, I began brainstorming solutions such as:
File server accessed via FTP or VPN
Public Cloud-based such as DropBox or Google.
NAS (Network Attached Storage) appliance such as Iomega or D-Link.
The server solution was my first thought, given the number of years I spent working with and
supporting physical servers in larger environments. However, the upfront cost and overhead to
manage a server-based solution would be a poor fit for a small non-profit with limited financial
resources.
The second option—utilizing public cloud storage—seemed like a viable option, given that the
cloud providers offered a user interface, managed the infrastructure, and can be accessed from
any Internet connection. Services such as Dropbox, Box, Google, and Amazon were reviewed;
subscription costs and features are summarized in Table 1.
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Table 1
Of the public cloud services, I find Dropbox and Box very straightforward with pricing and
features. Google provides an interface with Google apps and mail but I feel it has a complicated
licensing process. Amazon cloud drive appears strong for personal storage especially around
music, but lacks features for business/team storage management.
A NAS appliance solution also seemed viable; it is cheaper than a server and provides a user
interface for easier management. However, in looking at NAS appliances, most are designed
around local access with limited remote sharing capabilities that require Dynamic DNS service
or Static IP from the Internet provider. I then found Iomega’s line of Cloud Edition StorCenter
devices, in this case, the IX2-200 with 4TB(2TB mirrored). The Cloud Edition StorCenter is
based on the concept of the personal cloud of which I have found several definitions. I
understand the personal cloud to be a hybrid of private and public cloud features. Private, in that
the user owns the physical device but also public since a public access portal is used to get to
that private cloud. The Iomega StorCenter uses an installed client that accesses the Iomega
StorCenter device based on a cloud name registered with Iomega portal service. The
registration on the portal is included in the cost of the device and does not require a static IP.
While the Iomega StorCenter Cloud Edition device was a higher cost than the typical NAS
appliance, it did offer the features of easy secure remote access that NAS did not. It was very
comparable to the public cloud services in terms of access, user management, and file sharing.
Note: Since implementing a solution for the rescue, several other personal cloud devices have
hit the market from companies such as D-Link and Western Digital.
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Compare Solutions
Price is a primary requirement when seeking a solution. I charted the costs for public clouds
versus the Iomega device using the storage and user requirements of the rescue to determine
pricing. This assumed historical data would be ready to store on Day 1 of use. I then projected
out three years of costs. The chart and graph below displays the costs for the services based on
a yearly basis. The license cost structure for Google and Amazon do not advertise price points
between 500GB (400GB for Google) and 1TB. It was not clear if those size ranges were
prorated or if customers are forced into the 1TB tier once above 500GB. The chart and graph
assume one must upgrade to 1TB tier after exceeding 500GB.
Chart of Service costs
Service Costs
Time Frame
Storage
(GB) Dropbox Box Google* Amazon* Iomega
Year 1
w/history 428 $1,420 $1,800 $1,068 $250 $365
Year 2 523 $1,420 $1,800 $1,068 $1,000 $0
Year 3 618 $1,420 $1,800 $1,068 $1,000 $0
*Pricing based on one account for bulk of storage and free accounts for end users.
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Graph of Service Costs
As can be seen from price comparisons, the Iomega is considerably less, followed by Amazon,
Google, Dropbox, and Box. While 1st year costs for Amazon are less than the cost of the
Iomega, the total costs over time of all the public clouds far exceed the initial purchase of the
Iomega device.
Why a Personal Cloud solution?
Following review of the features and prices of the above services, the choice to use the
personal cloud option from Iomega was made for several reasons:
Cost: although an upfront cost for the hardware, it was one time, not a subscription and
significantly lower than public cloud prices.
Ownership of data: Louie’s Legacy felt more comfortable having the data onsite. There
was concern about getting data back if the rescue decided to cancel the public cloud
subscription.
Internet connectivity: majority of I/O would be local to Cincinnati. The low DSL upload
bandwidth would slow down day-to-day activity to a public cloud. A local attached device
would perform better.
No User fees: although some public clouds included user licenses within the cost,
additional users incurred a license fee. Since the rescue may add or remove several
users over a year’s time, the personal cloud option—which did not charge per user and
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google dropbox amazon Box iomega
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allowed for up to 250 users (recommended up to 10 concurrent sessions)—was
preferred.
Backups: although the public cloud offered data backups, the personal cloud provided
the option to use 3rd party clouds for backups, portable external hard drives, as well as
the ability to copy to a second personal cloud device for disaster recovery. Since the
existing data on the shared storage would change little, an external drive with periodic
backups would suffice.
Protected storage: Although public clouds do have high uptime due to fault tolerance
and high availability technology, the personal cloud device is able to mirror drives,
avoiding single point of failure at the drive level.
It can be argued that the price comparison between personal and public clouds is not “apples to
apples” due to the extensive infrastructure behind the public cloud. In terms of this scenario,
with its specific requirements, I think it’s valid to compare the two. I am not suggesting the
personal cloud is better than a public cloud; only better in this situation.
It is possible to add additional protection to a personal cloud to be somewhat near the
infrastructure capabilities of a public cloud service, if desired. The additions could still come in at
a lower price than public cloud subscription costs over the three year period.
To demonstrate, I updated an earlier graph to include:
A second 2TB usable Iomega IX2-200 device for disaster recovery ($365)
An external 2TB hard drive for backups ($135)
An intelligent UPS ($150)
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Graph of Prices with add-ons for StorCenter
Configuring the Iomega
The initial setup involved simply plugging the ix2-200 into the router with DHCP enabled. The
included CD-ROM contains a setup wizard which, once launched from a PC sharing the same
subnet, will search the local network for the ix2-200. Once found, the wizard will walk through
the steps to set up an administrator account and password and bring you to the setup page.
This process was straight forward and well documented in the Quick Start Guide listed in the
reference section.
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On the setup page, I assigned the device name, enabled email notifications, enabled security
(SSL), and set up a Windows workgroup. Port 50500 was forwarded on the router and on the
DSL modem to allow for the cloud connection through the firewall.
Setting up Cloud
To set up the personal cloud, click on the “Cloud Services” icon on the left side of the
configuration console; in the main window, select “Personal cloud”.
The personal cloud configuration screen allows the user to configure the device as its own cloud
or to add to an existing personal cloud. The screen also indicates status of the connection
to the Internet and will post notification if either the port is closed or Internet is down.
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Example of port closed:
To configure the personal cloud click on “Settings” to bring up the settings screen. As seen
below, the cloud name is displayed as well as settings for Administration email address, port
number, and secure communication. There is an option to allow remote users Internet access to
files and media without going through the cloud. Note: media server requires port 50599 to be
open on the firewall.
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Once the settings are applied, the cloud connection should show “green” checks as seen below.
Once the cloud is configured, cloud members can be added. In personal cloud screen, the
“membership” tab will reveal existing members and allow you to add/delete members. To add,
click on the “Add a member” plus sign (+).
The new member screen will appear where a description and member email addresses can be
entered. The address will be where the cloud invite is sent.
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Once the member is created, they will show in the membership list. The account can be
enabled/disabled, deleted, or invite sent to join the cloud. The access code can be entered into
the iomega client to allow access to the cloud. If the user is connected, an IP adress will be
assigned as well as the name of the client computer name in the “name” field.
Note: The access code doesn’t allow access to the user/group owned data, merely access to
log into the ix2-200 Storcenter. User credentials must still be entered to get to the protected
share data.
Adding Users
One of the most useful features of the personal cloud device is the ability to add users without
concern for user licenses. The Storcenter interface provides an intuitive process to manage user
accounts. The screen layout is consistent with other management functions and provides pop
up information and overview screens to help novice users.
As seen below, the user management interface is opened with the “users” icon in the “common”
tab.
The user interface allows for setting user as an administrator and assigning a personal share
folder.
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Folder access permissions can be granted for individual users by selecting the “Access
Permissions” tab.
Add share permissions for user
Adding Groups
Adding groups on the Ix2-200 is similar to adding users. Select the “groups” icon from the
common tab.
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Click on “add a group” and enter group name.
Users can be added by clicking on “add users” and selecting the users to add to a newly
created group.
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Folder permissions can then be added to the group and its members.
Installing Client
The personal cloud invite sent by the cloud administrator will provide a link to the download
page found at http://portal.iomegacloud.com; clients for Linux, Mac, and PC are available.
Note: The install will also by default install Twonkey media server software and Quickprotect
backup software. These can be opted out in the custom install process. In the case of the
Louie’s Legacy setup these products were not used and media server was disabled.
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The client install wizard is fairly straightforward. Upon completion of all of the steps, the client
will automatically start where a link to connect to the cloud is provided.
The cloud name and access code can be manually entered into the cloud settings portion of the
Iomega Storage Manager.
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Once connected to the cloud, the status should show “green” check marks as well as an
assigned IP address from the personal cloud as seen below.
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Client Functions
The Storage Manager software provides several functions in accessing and managing the
personal cloud. The Storage Manager icon will appear in the task bar as seen below.
Right clicking on the Storage Manager icon will bring up a list of functions; browsing folders on
the share, setting password, saving configurations, and mapping shares to drive letters.
I have found the drive mapping feature to be one of Storage Manager’s best functions. This
made interfacing to the personal cloud shares much easier for end users. It also avoided the
need to use a browser-based file management tool and simply use Windows-based file
management that is familiar to users. As seen below, the mapped share is simply a network
mapped drive:
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Issues Encountered
Here are a few of the issues encountered with implementing the personal cloud and solutions I
found:
Dealing with double firewall: The DSL modem was owned by the Internet provider and
would periodically get upgraded and reset to factory default enabling its firewall and
deleting port forwarding for the personal cloud. The workaround is to save off the
personal cloud configuration and when the modem is reset, reload that configuration file.
Performance issues with IX2-200: The IX2-200 interface would hang and shares would respond slowly. This was resolved by disabling the media server as it was scanning
media files, which in the case of the animal rescue, were sizable. Also, upgrading the
firmware to v3.2.6.21659 helped a great deal with interface issues.
Drive mappings would disappear: Early on, the drive mappings to the IX2-200 would
disappear. Once Storage Manager was restarted on the client they would reappear. The
problem seems to have been resolved with upgrade to v1.3.4.28700
Conclusion
With the personal cloud, Louie’s Legacy Animal Rescue can now eliminate having files—both
paper and digital—located in multiple locations and having to share those files through fax,
email, and mail. As seen in the following diagram, the personal cloud allows the rescue to still
have physical possession of the data but utilize a portal service for remote users.
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The use of the Iomega personal cloud eliminates the need for subscription costs with just the
one-time purchase of the device while still providing the needed services. The rescue does not
have to worry about budgeting costs every year to maintain its information management on a
public cloud and risk losing the service (and access to critical data). This in turn allows Louie’s
to keep administrative costs low so that it can focus on its mission; saving animals.
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Appendix A: References
[1] “Consumers and the Personal Cloud”, Andrew Chetham ,Jason Chapman, Andrew Johnson, Michael Gartenberg Gartner, February 14 2012 [2] http://www.louieslegacy.org/home/ [3] http://iomega.com/resources/pdf/pdf_12.pdf [4] “Frequently Asked Questions Iomega Personal Cloud on StorCenter Devices” ,Iomega, http://iomega-personal-cloud.com [5] “Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 User Guide”, Iomega, http://iomega-personal-cloud.com [6] “The coming Personal Cloud: The cloud Storage for the Rest of Us” , Brian Gruttadauria, 2010 [7] http://lifelineapps.com [8] “Iomega Link Usage Guide” http://download.iomega.com/manuals/iomegalink/IomegaLinkQSG-en.pdf Appendix B: Performance App install
Iomega provides applications—found at Lifelineapps.com—that can be added to the IX2-200.
One useful application is the “Resource Monitor” which, as seen on the following screen shots,
can be downloaded from lifelineapps.com and installed using the “Application Manager” found
on the IX2-200 management console.
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Once installed, the Resource Monitor can be launched from the “systems tab”.
The Resource Monitor will show real time Memory, CPU, and I/O stats.
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Appendix C: Copy Job for backups
Copy Jobs can be created and scheduled to copy from or to any device registered in the
personal cloud. This can include another IX2-200, external hard drive, or client system. Copy
protocol can be rsync or Windows share. The following screen shots show “Copy job” setup.
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Appendix D: Mobile App
Iomega provides a mobile application, “Iomega Link”[8], free to download that provides access
to the personal cloud via iPhone or Android device. Iomega link allows for upload and download
of files as well as streaming and viewing. I’ve included some screen shots from an Android
phone connected to Louie’s IX2-200. It responded well on 3G for smaller files and was easy to
set up.
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