How safe are the clouds?
In the last week, Carbonite, a large backup vendor, was reported to have lost data for a significant number of users. In articles like this and this, journalists and users have been asking, rightly so, “How safe is data in the cloud?” If companies providing Cloud Computing are charging money to manage others’ data, we should expect them to do a better job than the average user or company. But how much safety can we reasonably expect?
As someone who uses Cloud-based services each day, I follow these discussions with interest. How much safety do I expect from using the Cloud? I expect to have full access to every bit of data I have at all times. No not having access to some of my data and not the rest, requesting a restore and waiting for an email when it’s ready, no waiting for a DVD in the mail. In a nutshell, complete and instant access. But is this a reasonable expectation for all data managed through Cloud Computing?
In my view, no. “Cloud Computing” is a type of technology, just as a “car” is a type of vehicle. While a Volvo and a Pinto are both cars, few would argue that they can expect the same level of safety. Before I buy a car, I ask basic questions to find out how many airbags there are or whether there is traction control because I know each car is different.
Cloud Computing is exactly the same. Problems that affect one Cloud Computing solution may not affect another. I reasonably expected complete and instant access because I did my homework.
Below is a basic set of questions I use to determine how safe my data is. I’ve included answers for Syncplicity as well for those curious.
1. How is the data stored?
You want at least three geo-replicated copies. If you have three copies, if something fails, during the time it takes an automated system or a human person to fix the problem, you still have multiple copies elsewhere for safety. A secondary failure happening after a first is surprisingly likely. Geo-replication means the data is stored in multiple data centers. Natural disasters, power outages, and network failures can all disable a data center. These types of problems, while rare, also typically take days to resolve.
What Syncplicity does: For a higher level of data safety, Syncplicity keeps four geo-replicated copies of all data.
2. Are verifications being done on the data?
Storing data is easy. It’s making sure you can get it back, one month, one year, or one decade later that’s hard. If you’ve ever burned a CD and found you couldn’t read it back later, you’ve experienced bit rot. You want to find out how your provider verifies your data hasn’t suffered bit rot and is still accessible.
What Syncplicity does: Syncplicity works with active data so our systems are constantly writing and reading the data stored. On each read, a verification test is performed to ensure that the data is accessible and the same as what was stored so you can be assured that your data is always available to you when you need it.
3. How is the data managed?
You want to make sure that your data is encrypted, there is strong security and access controls, and a strong privacy policy. One thing to look out for is that the privacy and data disclosure policies of many companies cover contact information, but specifically exclude your actual data. Thus, while they aren’t allowed to give your home address to anyone, they could give them your tax return. This is just plain wrong, but something to watch for.
What Syncplicity does: Data stored in Syncplicity is transferred and stored fully encrypted with the same technologies used by banks and the military for classified information. Specifically, data is transferred over 128bit SSL and stored using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Syncplicity’s Privacy Policy is also one of the strongest in the industry. We make it a point to explicitly extend our privacy policy to cover all stored data. Viral Tarpara and I discussed what this all means in more detail in Understanding Privacy in Cloud Computing.
4. What happens if the company disappears tomorrow?You’ll want to make sure they have a good story as to how to get your data if they go out of business or the service fails in a prolonged manner.
What Syncplicity does: Syncplicity provides data management rather than pure data storage. In the case that Syncplicity disappears tomorrow, you still have full access to your data on each computer, device, or web application that you use. What you lose is the accessibility and management functions such as access to previous versions and revision history, access to your data from your cell phone, and simple sharing.
As luck would have it, my own laptop died a horrible death this week and my faith in the clouds and Syncplicity got put to the test. I’m happy to report that all of the cloud-based services I used, from hosted e-mail to online code repositories to Syncplicity, passed with flying colors.
More Storage – Same Price, Limited Time!
Times are tough and it’s no secret there’s pressure on all of us to be more efficient at work and at home. With that in mind, Syncplicity would like to help. That’s why we’re so thrilled to announce a limited time promotion: sign up for a yearly account with us and get 100GB of storage for only $99.00 for the first year! That’s right, this means you can get twice as much space for sharing, syncing, backup, and anything else you like to do with Syncplicity, and pay no more than you would for our regular 50GB account!
If you don’t already have a Syncplicity account, browse over to http://www.syncplicity.com/promo and create one now. If you already do, but you’d like to take advantage of this offer and upgrade to an annual plan, just visit https://my.syncplicity.com/promo. This promotion ends July 2009.
Did you know Syncplicity is on Twitter? If you’d like to be the first to hear about announcements like this in the future and stay up-to-date on what’s happening with the Syncplicity team, follow us @ http://twitter.com/syncplicity.
Thanks for your support!
The Syncplicity Team
Mac Beta is out!
Today we are excited to announce the publicly available Syncplicity Mac Beta Client! With this release, Syncplicity users can share files between their Windows and Mac computers with ease. Any file changes made on one computer will sync to the other computer.
For those of you coming from backup products, there is no schedule option for Syncplicity. The client watches your files for changes and uploads the new versions immediately, it doesn’t wait a minimum of 4 hours like you may be used to. And for those using other ‘one folder’ sync products, you do not have to move all your documents to a new folder. Syncplicity will sync them wherever they are now.
Just like with the Windows version, any Mac folder can become a Syncplicity folder by right clicking the folder and adding it to Syncplicity. Once it’s a Syncplicity folder, the Syncplicity client will watch the folder for changes and immediately synchronize the changes to your other computers. New and updated files will be securely backed up by Syncplicity, past revisions will be available on the Syncplicity website, and the latest versions will be sync’ed to your other computers.
Our Windows users will immediately recognize the Syncplicity icon sitting pretty in the menu bar. Syncplicity communicates its status through the menu icon and the grayed lines in the pop-down menu. For the geekier users, you can find out what Syncplicity is up to by watching the trace window.
If you have a Mac, give the new beta a whirl. As this is a beta, please send us feedback!
Happy Sync’ing!
Isaac
The Beta period is over!
It was a long night back on April 15th, the day we first unveiled Syncplicity to the world as a Beta service. We’ve been working on the product for about a year at that point and releasing its Beta version was a culmination of many sleepless nights, heated feature discussions, and personal bonds we forged in making our vision a reality. We weren’t sure how things were going to turn out – no one ever does – but that only added to our excitement and drive to make Syncplicity succeed.
Fast forward about six and a half months to today, November 3rd. There are twice as many of us now and we’re still hiring (apply on our Jobs page and look out for new openings soon!). We’re fortunate to be backed by a fantastic venture firm here in San Francisco and can’t wait to use the funds to deliver an even better service to you, our users. And we’re delighted to announce that we’re leaving the Beta label behind and launching a release version Syncplicity! We’ve dedicated the last few months to making sure the service was ready for prime time – expanded our infrastructure, sped up the service, and fixed the last few bugs still lurking around. We hope you like it!
Starting today, you can also subscribe to one of Syncplicity’s paid plans. If you’ve been keeping track of our plans around this, you’ll notice a few changes we’re making – changes we think you’re going to like. Our basic paid plan is now 25% larger (starts at 50GB) and if you tell your friends about Syncplicity, we’ll add an extra 2GB to your paid account for the first three that subscribe.
Our free plan isn’t going anywhere and is getting a bit of a makeover as well. All free users start off with 2GB, but we’ve made it easy to get that number up to 5GB, and even 7GB. How? Invite three friends and we’ll add 1GB to your account for each one who signs up.
Help us spread the word about Syncplicity and we’ll make sure you and your friends are getting one of the best deals out there. That’s right – unlike before, your friends will get 4GB free accounts and extra 5GB in their paid accounts if they decide to give Syncplicity a try based on your recommendation! This is a limited time offer though, so don’t delay!
Our special thanks go to all of our existing Beta users who have given us their invaluable feedback in the form of suggestions, bug reports, and even the occasional crash report. We appreciate it! As a small token of our gratitude, we’ll start your free accounts at 5GB and paid accounts at 60GB if you subscribe by the end of the year. Note that we’ll also keep your accounts unlimited until November 17th in order to give you plenty of time to make a decision as to which plan to choose.
As always, we’re looking forward to your feedback and working with you to make Syncplicity even better!
The Syncplicity Team
Newest Syncplicity Employee
hello everyone! i wanted to introduce myself to the syncp community. i recently joined and i’m already right in the thick of it! since the first beta, i’ve been playing around with syncplicity and thought it was a really good product. leonard and i had met through a mutual friend of ours and quickly bonded over the trials of startup life. at the time, i had founded my own startup and was trying to get that off the ground. like many other people on the forums, i had been badgering him to develop a syncp mac client since most of my personal files are on macs.
when leonard decided they would make the mac client one of their highest priorities, i was inbetween things and he somehow convinced me that if i wanted a mac client, the quickest way possible would be if i wrote it myself. this will teach me never to ask for anything again 
. i also discovered that isaac and ondrej were really awesome guys and also much smarter me, so it was an easy decision.
looking at the forums, i’m pleasantly surprised by the number of people who have given syncplicity such positive and useful feedback. i am really excited to have such quality users and will work hard to match the level of excellence the windows client has achieved. i will be contributing to the forums from now on. if you have a concern or idea for the mac client, feel free to drop me a line on the forums or directly at ian[at]syncplicity[dot]com.
-ian
Keep an eye on Syncplicity with FriendFeed
We set up a FriendFeed group for Syncplicity over the weekend as a more informal venue to mention what’s on our minds and what we’ve got up our sleeves. Hope to see you there!
Share your files with anyone!
Need to quickly send a file to someone? Don’t bother with email! It’s slow, unsecured, and has limits on the size of your attachments. Why not just let your mom, friend, or colleague download your file with a single click?
With the latest update to Syncplicity, you can. If your files are being synced by Syncplicity, your computer already did all the hard work of uploading them – so why do it again? Just right click on any file in any Syncplicity folder, open the Syncplicity menu, and click “Get a shareable link…”. Syncplicity will come right back with a link you can send to anyone.
This is what it looks like:
And this is the window that will pop right up:
The link you get is a public one so anyone, even people without Syncplicity accounts, will be able to use it if they find out about it. The link contains a secret key so only those people you give the link to (and people they give it to) will be able to dowload your file.
And as everything else in Syncplicity, all downloads are secure and fully encrypted.
Let us know what you think about this feature on our forums – we’d love to hear about how you use it!
Have a great week,
Ondrej