JungleDisk Works!

We are busy migrating business clients to cloud storage. The enabling technology for our users is JungleDisk software that allows us to map a drive on the user's PC to his/her/their files in cloud storage at Amazon. Here are the business cases we are dealing with:

• Instead of using Backup.com for online backup, JungleDisk and Amazon do the job for dimes instead of dollars.
• Instead of replacing an aged Microsoft Small Business Server machine, Google Apps (Gmail) and JungleDisk/Amazon do the work better and MUCH CHEAPER.
• Instead of hauling a laptop around the country, with the inherent risks of loss of data and confidentiality, a road warrior can access his files stored at Amazon from any machine with Internet access running JungleDisk software off a USB key.
  

As long as the user has broadband Internet access, cloud storage works well.

Here's one tidbit we've learned from our experience to date: JungleDisk Workgroup Edition does not support file locking. This means two users can have the same file open. The last user to save their changes will overwrite the changes of the first user to save. Here's a work-around that we've had success with: Any document/file that will be worked on collaboratively goes into an aptly named cloud folder . If/when anybody wants to work on a file in such a folder, they can: Rename the file while it is being edited OR Cut and paste the file to his/her desktop to work on it. People have been pretty good about following the rules, and we have not had problems with losing information because two people were working on a document, spreadsheet, database, etc. at the same time.