Any ideas where to start? I am thinking of doing something a bit more than just reselling other peoples services.
What I want to do is give my customers a central folder accessible from anything (smart phones, PCs, tablets etc) which is stored on the internet (servers must be EU based due to DPA laws) - it will work like Dropbox.
Then I also want the usual online backup of local hard drives (a service I already offer) and also outlook exchange servers etc.
My question is how to integrate all of that?
I am just getting behind the times a bit and I wonder if I should do another computing course to catch up on the cloud side of things. Long term I really need to move out of the PC business as it is only going down hill.
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Ask yourself the question, Why would I use you rather than iCloud, Dropbox, Skydrive, Adrive....
the fact that I can rattle off 4 good free cloud storage services should indicate just how much of a non business this is
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>> Ask yourself the question, Why would I use you rather than iCloud, Dropbox, Skydrive, Adrive....
>> the fact that I can rattle off 4 good free cloud storage services...
I make that 3 good cloud services plus iCloud.
Having used MobileMe for several years, and before that .Mac, I find iCloud is a retrograde step. Still annoyed that MobileMe has been switched off with no replacement in iCloud for some of the more useful services.
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Think I'd be analysing what actually earns me the good money at the moment and concentrating on that, rather than spreading myself too thinly. Though additional strings on one's bow never harm I suppose.
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The free ones offer limited space, and can get very expensive if you need more storage and then there is the issue of having the data stored in the EU to comply with the data protection act which may be relevant to some customers. The training aspect of it is another major thing I want to do.
I am not really aiming this at the casual home user.
Another service I am offering is tablets with full support and setup a package similar to what you get with the Ipad but at 1/3 of the price.
I have no intention of quitting the PC business but I just can't see them being much market for it another five years time.
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>I am not really aiming this at the casual home user.
So who are you aiming it at? Small Business?
What's the bandwidth to your multiple redundant Data Centres?
Last edited by: Kevin on Thu 12 Jul 12 at 23:19
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you would have to buy it from one of the existing vaulting companies, and then resell it on.
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I would have to buy the bandwidth from a data centre, and buy some probably of the shelf software, but I don't actually have to simply resell somebody elses product, I think that is what I am getting at.
It would be aimed at small business, bandwidth limit would depend on the cost, the problem is they are so many people offering unlimited services which I think is very dodgy marketing.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Thu 12 Jul 12 at 23:27
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Are you suggesting you will store user data in your 'cloud'. I'lll leave at that for now. I can only assume you're thinking of getting servers and storage racked in a well connected location, Is it the latter?
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Amazon had some outages recently with their EC2 service in the US. And both Amazon and Microsoft had outages in their Irish data centres last year. So if they cannot provide the high resilience of what a customer expects of a 'cloud' infrastructure what chances do you have.
When customers talk about the 'cloud' they generally expect high availability, no loss of data, high bandwidth etc. You'd really need to be putting infrastructure in two geographically separate data centres with replication between them. And in each data centre you'd want a SAN etc.
What I wouldn't expect as a customer is someone using a pile of USB drives or a NAS to hold my data. And if I was paying for this I'd expect some legal comeback if data was lost, corrupted or unavailable. And then there's the security angle to consider. I suppose you could do as Zero suggests and pay for Rackspace or Amazon to host this for you and expand as it takes off.
The players in this market spend a lot of money to provide a lot of storage.
Going back to others offering this service. Dropbox gives you 2Gb for free. It is easy to get more space by inviting guests and similar. I got a new phone this week and now have 25Gb free storage space at Dropbox for 2 years.
What you should be thinking of is how to charge out your expertise to customers to help them setup and use such services. Don't think about hosting it yourself.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 13 Jul 12 at 08:49
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Sugarsync gives 5 GB free and Adrive (on sync though just online storage) gives a massive 50 GB free.
You can increase that space by opening multiple accounts.
I'll echo what others said. Start reselling others' cloud space. Dixons group sell Livedrive's cloud storage. When big businesses start reselling other's cloud product there must be a reason for that.
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Thanks I guess that is the best thing to do really, I already do resell online backups but the commission is tiny but I make money from setting it up.
My issue is EU storage but I can do research on that and resell products according to what people need, I suspect most people could not give a toss where their data is stored.
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The EU stuff will impact businesses but not individuals. I would think you can make good money helping people make use of cloud storage and exploit it.
For example, some of the latest Android phones come with free Dropbox space. I think it's 25Gb for the Galaxy S3 and it is for the HTC One X for sure. The idea being you have access to your files from anywhere. and in the case of the HTC One X and S there is no SD card slot so you are limited to what you can take with you.
So coming up with a service to help people sync files to the cloud and then access them from anywhere has value. And it's this value that can make you money. Doing it right by hosting files yourself would be very costly to get the resilience etc. And if you used infrastructure from someone like Amazon you might find the EU problem arises because the data centre will be in Ireland. Same goes for Microsoft come to that.
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I believe the Galaxy S3 actually comes with 50Gb of drop box storage for 2 years. That phone still feels cheap to me....
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That phone feels too big to me.
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If you're referring to the Galaxy S3.... yes it feels too big to me too. It also looks bigger than it is. Which is why I didn't get one. Feels really cheap too. And it's probably the most capable of all new phones.
I went for the HTC One X.... was probably going to just get the One S but there's not much in it. And it's nearly as big as the S3.... but to me didn't look or feel as big. Odd really. Downside is no replaceable battery or SD card slot.
The screen on the Galaxy S3 is as big as an iPhone!
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I still have my S1, I decided since the signal is always crap on at weekends when I need it most there is no point on having quad cores etc when the signal is nill. My S8 is now costing me £8 a month 300 minutes, unlimited data*, unlimited texts :).
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Any use for a spare battery and charger/stand (can charge the spare battery outside of the phone)? Free of course.
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>> If you're referring to the Galaxy S3.... yes it feels too big to me too.
>> It also looks bigger than it is. Which is why I didn't get one. Feels
>> really cheap too. And it's probably the most capable of all new phones.
I have one on trial from work at the moment. My thoughts can be summarised as :
+
Best touch screen I've come across on any mobile device (including iPhone)
Excellent battery life (can't remember the last time I said that about a smartphone)
Quad Core processor + Ice Cream Sandwich gives a very pleasant user experience.
Surprisingly capable camera.
-
It's big (although thinner and lighter than an iPhone 4S)
The predictive text system is execrable, unusable merde.
The screen marks too easily.
A little plasticky.
Last edited by: DP on Mon 16 Jul 12 at 14:52
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>> The predictive text system is execrable, unusable merge.
Have you tried out Swype?
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To me the Galaxy S3 feels to cheap. Specs are fine. I am not a fan of TouchWiz either - avoided it on the Galaxy S i9000 but it's a bit better in version 4.
The screen on the HTC One X is not as big and is an IPS LCD and not Amoled. Plus side is it's not Pentile (although you'd not notice on the Galaxy S3 with that resolution) but uses more power not being AMOLED. But the feel of the polycarbonate case is much nicer.
I know there are potentially some issues with the HTC One X and will be monitoring.
sorry for thread drift Rattle.
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Saw this late - don't often come in here because of the dreadful watches, shoes and personal hygiene I might find. };---)
Anyway, Rats, I entirely endorse RTJ's suggestion. I have first-hand experience of building and selling a custom-built cloud for a niche market and it's slow, difficult and hideously expensive. And the first question anyone in our niche asks us is, "Why should I use you rather than Microsoft / Google / Amazon / Rackspace?" We have answers to that but it's still not an easy sell; you'd have a mountain to climb.
But you do have your expertise to sell. As with wifi ten years ago, there are plenty of people who see Cloud services as something they should be using but fewer with the nous to make it work for them. Look at the big providers' services and put together some packages that you can recommend to small businesses, along with convincing answers to the 'what does this really do for me?' questions.
Eventually, Cloud will become the norm and your business will dry up, but there'll be another Next Big Thing, and you can be ready to cash in on that too.
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I am at a total loss to see the benefits of cloud based computing.
Yes - I understand the data is 'safer' off site (physically but not convinced regards security)
I also understand that 3rd party data/apps will be updater more quickly, but......
In my job, more and more of the systems I have to use to do my job are on-line.
And more and more I'm finding it taking longer to access the information I need.
Bandwidth being the biggest issue, but a close second is the sites being taken down for maintenance.
Try telling a customer that I can't look up his part numbers, because the system is down, then I can't advise the availability when I manage to get the part numbers because that system has also just gone down..... (imagine being on the end of a phone while some garage guy taps his fingers on the desk waiting to the computer to work......)
Not realistic?
Its just another day for me now......
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>> I am at a total loss to see the benefits of cloud based computing.
In your case its cost and the complexity of version control. Making and distributing and tracking all the numerous changes is slow and prone to problems with being out of date.
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>> I believe the Galaxy S3 actually comes with 50Gb of drop box storage for 2 years. That phone still feels cheap to me.... >>
HTC manage 25GB with Dropbox...:-) The One X has a 32GB capacity although, as stated, there is no microSD card slot. Took a bit of getting used to at first - whether the "non-replaceable" battery will be an issue I don't know. Seem to recall that the iPod was similar, although some did know how to replace the battery.
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So Stuartli you've got the One X too? It's a nice phone and if you leave it in standby it uses very little power compared to my Galaxy S and so would last days (the +1 CPU on the Tegra 3 will be helping).
But mine sometimes drops the mobile network connection and then finds it again. I think it's to do with swapping between cells on the network.... I wondered if you had seen this because if it's a generic One X problem then a fix is needed. If it's just mind maybe the phone has problems. Still like it though.
Sorry to go off topic Rattle.
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Getting into the cloud - Zero
