Map network drive to cloud storage, no syncing, options?

[mbalcs]

Hello,

I am looking for a solution to the following business issue. Preferably a cloud based non-hardware, non-vpn solution.

I have data files used by some mortgage software in my office (24,000 files across about 800 meg). Currently I have just shared the folder and the individual PCs accessing the data just set their data location as \\joes-pc\datafiles\ or something like that (the data location is set in the mortgage software).

My main problem is that I am opening an offshore location and I need to have the remote users to also specify a networked location for the file storage. I have no vpn or other hardware other than wireless routers. Only a few requirements.....when one user has a file open if a second user tries to open the file (from the mortgage software) it tells the user the file is already open....there is no simultaneous sharing of a file and this needs to continue. I do not want to sync files from the cloud to local drives since I am guessing this would lead to all sorts of sharing issues. I basically need the files to act as if they are on my local network. I need the files centrally located, not distributed to users desktops.

Secondary issue would be ensuring backups happen somehow....right now I just copy the files to a external harddrive once a week, but I really should at least use dropbox for this or something so it is done automatically. Used carbonite in the past and it encrypted the files in such a way that they were unrecoverable.

Ideas???

 

[St1ckM4n]

Some ideas:

1. Purchase a cloud server service.
2. Look at Logmein Hamachi.
3. For backups, use a batch file and set it to run on schedule via Task Scheduler.

 

[Kang0808]

Hello,

I am looking for a solution to the following business issue. Preferably a cloud based non-hardware, non-vpn solution.

I have data files used by some mortgage software in my office (24,000 files across about 800 meg). Currently I have just shared the folder and the individual PCs accessing the data just set their data location as \\joes-pc\datafiles\ or something like that (the data location is set in the mortgage software).

My main problem is that I am opening an offshore location and I need to have the remote users to also specify a networked location for the file storage. I have no vpn or other hardware other than wireless routers. Only a few requirements.....when one user has a file open if a second user tries to open the file (from the mortgage software) it tells the user the file is already open....there is no simultaneous sharing of a file and this needs to continue. I do not want to sync files from the cloud to local drives since I am guessing this would lead to all sorts of sharing issues. I basically need the files to act as if they are on my local network. I need the files centrally located, not distributed to users desktops.

Secondary issue would be ensuring backups happen somehow....right now I just copy the files to a external harddrive once a week, but I really should at least use dropbox for this or something so it is done automatically. Used carbonite in the past and it encrypted the files in such a way that they were unrecoverable.

Ideas???

Hi mbalcs,
As St1ckM4n said, maybe a cloud service provider is what you are looking for. there are a lot of cloud providers in the market, if you google it and you will and many. I'll recommand some internetional providers like Amazon web servers: http://aws.amazon.com. Of course, aws is relative expensive and you habe to sign contact for a certain period. Start-up companies like www.profitbricks.com/de/en offers much cheaper price. There are shortcomes and advantages for each provider. So you'd better ask some professional consultants about cloud service providers.