Cloud Computing for Education Workshop

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Cloud Computing for Education

Workshop

Backup, Sync, and Share Your

Data with Public Clouds

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Why Should You Learn This?

CCEW '12 Backup, Sync, and Share Your

Learn some useful software and services

•  Backup and sync your materials for teaching

§  Data reliability

§  Convenience

•  Preserve the version history of your data

§  Easily recover a previous version or restore the deleted data

•  Share your teaching materials with students and your

colleagues

§  Convenience

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Introduction of Popular Sync Softwares

Data with Public Clouds

•  We introduce three popular sync software

§  Dropbox

§  Sugarsync

§  Google Drive

Dropbox Overview

•  Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by Dropbox, Inc. It offers a free account of 2 GB, paid accounts of 50 GB, 100 GB, and a team account of 1 TB or more

•  Dropbox officially launched at 2008's TechCrunch50, an annual technology conference

•  As of October 2011, Dropbox had more than 50 million users, of which 96% were using a free account

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Features of Dropbox

•  Simple design and ease of use

§  Praised by many publications: The Economist, The New York Times, PC Magazine, and The Washington Post

•  Support almost all the platforms

§  Dropbox provides client software for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, and BlackBerry OS

•  Support version control

§  The version history is by default kept for 30 days, with an unlimited version called "Pack-Rat" available for purchase

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Disadvantages of Dropbox

•  High price

§  It offers just 2GB of storage for free (5GB after April 2012). Extra storage is very expensive: 100GB of storage for $19.99/month, while Google Drive offers the same amount of storage for $4.99/ month

•  Cannot sync any folder in the computer

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BACKUP&SYNC with Dropbox

•  The Dropbox client enables users to

drag and drop

any

file into a designated folder that is then synced with

Dropbox's Internet service and to any other of the user's

computers and devices with the Dropbox client

§  View and update your data instantly in other devices

§  The desktop client has no restriction on individual file size

•  Users may also upload files manually through a web

browser (

drag and drop

)

§

 

Files uploaded via the web site are limited to no more than 300 MB per file

example

Version control in Dropbox

•  Recover an old file version

§  By the Dropbox client

§  By the web browser

•  Restore a deleted file

§  By the web browser

Recover an old file version by the client

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Security for Dropbox

•  Server side: Data at rest are stored encrypted (AES-256

bit encryption)

•  Client side: No encryption

•  Communication: SSL (Secure Socket Layer)

•  In May 2011, a complaint was filed with the US FTC

alleging Dropbox misled users about the privacy and

security of their files

§  The files stored in Dropbox are encrypted by the keys known to Dropbox, any intruder (as well as Dropbox employee) who gets the keys could decrypt any file

How to protect the privacy of your sensitive data stored in Dropbox?

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Security for Dropbox (cont.)

•  A solution for protecting the privacy of your data stored in

Dropbox: Use third party encryption software

truecrypt

•  How to use truecrypt with Dropbox (Will show the

process during the lecture)

§  Install truecrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads)

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How to Share Data with Dropbox

•  Share public links

§  File/Folder

§  Both client-based and browser-based

§  Public links are unsearchable (

https://www.dropbox.com/ s/cvlsakz5gvagkfq/ touxiang1.jpg). Only the people who get the links can access the shared file

§  Sign in not required

§  Read only

Client-based

Browser-based

How to Share Data with Dropbox (cont.)

•  Remove public links

§  If you don’t want to share the links any more, you can remove them, browser-based only

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How to Share Data with Dropbox (cont.)

•  Share folders with other

collaborators

§  Browser-based only

§  No fine-grained access control (all the collaborators can add/delete/modify files in this share folder)

§  Send an invitation to the collaborators §  Sign in required Step1 Step2 Step3 14

How to Share Data with Dropbox (cont.)

•  Administration Rights

§  Anyone invited to a folder by the creator can also invite others to join the folder

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SugarSync Overview

•  SugarSync is a service that actively syncs files across

computers and other devices. It is operated by SugarSync,

Inc.

•  SugarSync offers a free account of 5 GB, paid accounts of

30GB, 60 GB, 100 GB, 250GB, and 500GB

•  In September 2011, Gizmodo reviewed SugarSync and

10 other competitors (including Dropbox, Apple's iCloud,

Box.net, etc.) and named SugarSync the Best Cloud

Service

Features of SugarSync

•  Support all the known platforms except Linux

§  SugarSync is available for Windows and Mac OS X. For mobile devices, SugarSync has an app for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian devices, and a Windows Phone 7 app is in development

•  Support multiple-folder syncing

§  Compared to Dropbox, which only supports single-folder syncing, SugarSync can support syncing any folder in the computer

•  Version control

§  The version history is kept for 5 days

§  Can restore deleted files and recover the old file versions

•  More free storage compared to Dropbox

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Security for SugarSync

•  Server side: Data at rest are stored encrypted (AES-128

bit encryption)

•  Client side: No encryption

•  Communication: TLS (Transport Layer Security)

To protect the privacy of your sensitive data stored in SugarSync, we still need to integrate third-party encryption tools

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BACKUP&SYNC with SugarSync

•  Can backup and sync any folder in your computer

§  Rather than single files

•  How to backup and sync

§  One simple right click, very

convenient

§  Sync with the SugarSync client

§  Sync in the web brower

One right-click sync

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•  Share public links

§  File only

§  Both client-based and browser-based tools

§  Public links are unsearchable (https:// www.sugarsync.com/pf/ D8778312_67688477_670 58). Only the people who get the links can access the shared file

§  Sign in not required

§  Read only

Client-based

Browser-based

How to Share Data with SugarSync

How to Share Data with SugarSync (cont.)

•  Remove public links

§  If you don’t want to share the links any more, you can remove them only from the web browser

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How to Share Data with SugarSync (cont.)

•  Share folders with other

collaborators

§  Web browser-based only

§  Can set fine-grained access control

•  Read only

•  Read/add/edit

§  Password protected files

§  Send an invitation to the collaborators

§  Sign in required

Step1

Step2

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How to Share Data with SugarSync (cont.)

•  Administration Rights

§  Anyone invited to a folder by the creator is not allowed to invite others to join the folder

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Google Drive Overview

•  Google Drive is a file storage and sync service by Google

that was released on April 24, 2012

•  Google Drive is an extension of Google Docs, allowing

users to store all types of files on the Google servers

•  Google Drive provides 5GB free storage. Current monthly

rates for increased storage are: $2.49 for 25 GB, $4.99 for

100 GB, and additional tiers up to 16 TB at roughly $0.05

per GB

Features of Google Drive

•  Offer perfect functionalities to support online working and collaboration

§  Google Drive gives you instant access to Google Docs, a suite of editing

tools that make working together better

§  Online document editing (document, presentation, spreadsheet, form,

drawing, etc.)

•  Competitive price

§  5GB free storage

§  100GB: Dropbox $19.99/month , SugarSync $14.99/month, Google Drive

$4.99/month

•  Support version control

§  The version history is kept for 30 days

§  Can recover the old file versions and restore the deleted files

•  Additional functionalities

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Disadvantages of Google Drive

•  Support only a few platforms and provide limited

functionalities in the client

§  Windows, Mac OS X Lion, Android, iOS 3.0+

•  Cannot sync any folder in the computer

§  Similar to Dropbox, one folder only

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Security for Google Drive

•  Server side: It is not clear whether

the data are stored encrypted or not

§  Some articles claim that the data are stored encrypted in Google Drive, but no confirmation is found in Google’s official website

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BACKUP&SYNC with Google Drive

•  An uploaded file can be up to 10GB

•  Two ways for backup and sync (similar to Dropbox)

•  Client-based: Drag and drop

§  Browser-based: Manually upload. Drag-and-drop feature is available only in the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox

Share Data with Google Drive

•  Share files/folders

•  Browser-based only

•  Share options

§  Public on the web: Anyone on the Internet can find and access. No sign-in required

§  Anyone with the link: Anyone has the link can access. No sign-in required

§  Private: Only people explicitly granted permission can access. Sign-in required

•  Access options

§  Can view: Read only

§  Can comment: Read and add comments

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Share Data with Google Drive (cont.)

•  Privately share

§  Can grant fine-grained access permissions to different people

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Some other functionalities

•  Preview

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Hands-on tasks

•  Preliminary

§  Go to Dropbox official website (http://www.dropbox.com) and get a

free Dropbox account; Download and install Dropbox client in your own computer; Run Dropbox client and bind your Dropbox account with your Dropbox client

•  Video

§  http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=YqF_AsR8MZA&feature=player_embedded

•  Basic exercises

§  Backup and sync your data with Dropbox

§  Recover the old file version and restore the deleted file in Dropbox

§  Protect the privacy of your data by using truecrypt with Dropbox

§  Share data with Dropbox (share public links, remove the shared

public links, share folders with your collaborators)

Hands-on tasks (cont.)

•  More exercises (if we have time)

§  Go to www.sugarsync.com, install SugarSync

§  Backup and sync your data with SugarSync (sync any folder in your computer)

§  Recover the old file versions and restore the deleted files in SugarSync

Cloud Computing for Education Workshop