Goldilock's Storage Solution, not too cold, not too hot - Pogoplug adds Amazon Glacier

Last week I got a chance to talk to PogoPlug CEO Dan Putterman.  And, what came to mind is Pogoplug's Amazon Glacier integration is a Goldilocks story.  Not too hot (expensive, yet fast).  Not too cold (cheaper, but slow).  Something just right which is a mix of hot and cold.

Daniel Putterman

President and CEO

Daniel, our fearless leader, President and CEO, is an industry-leading digital media entrepreneur. He founded Mediabolic in 1999 and served as CEO until its sale to Macrovision (now Rovi) in 2007. Mediabolic's software now powers millions of next generation digital consumer electronics devices. Additionally, he founded MaxInfo, the first collaborative Web media design software for the Internet (and acquired by NetManage), as well as EoExchange, a multimedia search engine for the Web. Over the last 20 years, Daniel has worked as an entrepreneur advocate, and has invested and teamed with colleagues to launch numerous Silicon Valley companies.

Daniel spent the earlier part of his career in senior management positions at Borland International and Symantec Corporation, where he was responsible for product management, business development and worldwide evangelism. He is a passionate and outgoing speaker on technology trends and issues. His dog, Riso, is our office mascot, troublemaker and vacuum cleaner.

It's one of the things I like about blogging is getting a 1/2 hr to talk to executives about their product from my home office, and learn a bit more. 

The press announcement that PogoPlug released this morning is for integration with Amazon Glacier.

September 06, 2012 09:00 ET

Pogoplug Introduces New Cloud Storage Service Using Amazon Glacier

New Service Combines Safe, Affordable Cloud Backup With Instant Access and Sharing

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 6, 2012) - Pogoplug today announced its new cloud storage service for families and small businesses. The service seamlessly integrates Amazon's Glacier storage with Pogoplug-enabled storage in the home or office. The combination provides the most affordable and safest multi-user cloud backup, with instant access and sharing from anywhere on the Internet.

"Amazon is revolutionizing cloud storage with Glacier. Our new offering provides the missing link by eliminating the three to five hour retrieval time intrinsic to Glacier -- making all content instantly accessible," said Daniel Putterman, CEO of Pogoplug. "By keeping data synchronized between Amazon Glacier and a Pogoplug device in the home or office, we are offering unprecedented pricing for safe, fast cloud storage."

The Amazon Glacier support provides a tiered storage strategy with your local PogoPlug device, Amazon S3, and Glacier.  This range gives the benefits of hot local storage, cloud for Internet access speeds, and cold tape back-up for peace of mind. 

Part of geeking out with Dan was discussing Mac Time Machine support and how his device compares to the Drobo-FS I have in my office.

Not you don't have to store everything in the cloud if you don't have the Internet bandwidth.

Archive

Once your data is safely stored on your Pogoplug, with one click you can choose to have a second copy of all or part of your data automatically and continuously archived to Pogoplug’s secure cloud. This additional backup protects your most critical files in case of a disaster at home, keeping your data twice as safe.

I am kind of surprised how much press there is one the announcement, but that is the benefit of being one of the first with Amazon Glacier support. 

Pogoplug adds Amazon Glacier-based cloud storage, includes gratis devices ... Engadget - ‎3 hours ago‎ Pogoplug Team plans enable businesses to leverage existing servers or computers for backup, private cloud storage and team collaboration. Each Pogoplug Team plan includes a fully customizable user interface, and up to 5 terabytes of offsite cloud storage.   Pogoplug debuts first consumer cloud service to utilize Amazon Glacier BetaNews - ‎3 hours ago‎ Consumer and enterprise cloud storage company Pogoplug on Thursday announced it has integrated Amazon Glacier long-term archival storage into the Pogoplug service. In its usual fashion, Pogoplug mirrors content from your local drives in the cloud and ...   Pogoplug hooks up with Amazon Glacier for cheap cloud storage VentureBeat - ‎3 hours ago‎ Backup storage provider Pogoplug has integrated with Amazon's new Glacier cloud storage in a move to make the personal backup storage more affordable and reliable, the company announced today. Pogoplug competes with consumer cloud backup and ...   Pogoplug taps Amazon Glacier for archiving GigaOM - ‎3 hours ago‎ Pogoplug's Team Service lets businesses use an existing server as shared and secure storage for authorized users, and a small Pogoplug device brings similar capabilities to home users. Now those Pogoplug devices, using the Amazon Glacier API, will ...   Pogoplug adds cloud caution with Amazon Glacier SlashGear - ‎3 hours ago‎ Pogoplug continues to push its own interpretation of cloud storage, revealing today a new service integrating with Amazon Glacier for a combination of local and remote backup. The deal sees users able to keep copies of their files both at home or the office, ...   Bridging Hot And Cold Cloud Storage InformationWeek - ‎2 hours ago‎ Pogoplug had been quietly developing a way to plug a major hole in its service--namely, what happens when your personal cloud dies or you accidentally delete an important folder? Enter Glacier, a service seemingly tailor made for products like Pogoplug ...   PogoPlug Crushing Competition with 1TB of Cloud Storage for $99 a Year Gotta Be Mobile - ‎3 hours ago‎ PogoPlug offers some unique ways to do cloud storage using your own hard drives by interfacing with their software, website and PogoPlug devices, but they took a huge leap forward today announcing new PogoPlug with Amazon Glacier built-in. This gives ...   Pogoplug partners with Amazon to offer affordable cloud storage family plans TECH.BLORGE.com - ‎34 minutes ago‎ Pogoplug is pairing up with Amazon to offer not only its own storage devices but also online archival storage. That means that your information will be accessible even if your hard drive dies, gets a nasty virus, or you just upgrade your computer. They are also ...   Pogoplug launches Amazon Glacier-powered cloud storage service The Next Web - ‎3 hours ago‎ It's only been a couple weeks since Amazon launched its low-cost Glacier service for infrequently accessed data, but storage solutions provider Pogoplug is ready to take advantage of it. The company's Family and Team services both make use of Glacier ...   Pogoplug Unveils New Family And Small Business Cloud Storage Solutions ... Geeky gadgets - ‎3 hours ago‎ PogoPlug has launched a new service this week designed to provide families and small businesses with a Cloud storage solution which utilises Amazon's Glacier storage services. The new packages start from $29 a year for unlimited private cloud storage at ...

MacBook Pro Retina vs. Thinkpad T530 vs. Dell M4600, creatives would choose Pro

I just got my MacBook Pro Retina on yesterday and I am so glad I opted for 16GB of memory.  Curious I decided to do a bit of price comparison.

My MacBook Pro Retina is configured with Intel i7 2.6 GHz 4 core, 16 GB of memory and 512 GB SSD with the highest end Retina Display.  These are what I looked for when comparing to a Thinkpad and Dell Laptop. Price $2999

Dell M4600 Laptop has the enterprise options with multiple drives, etc.  I added equivalent processor, RAM, and SSD.  Price $4,648

Lenovo Thinkpad T530 has again many more options, but only allows a 180 GB SSD, so the $3,409 price would be much higher if you could add a 512 GB SSD.

Let alone how these machines look.

The Dell XPS 15 is $1799, but at this time I could not upgrade the RAM, or SSD.  It's price is $1799 for 8GB and 720 GB HD.

The MacBook Pro is being criticized for being too expensive.  It is not for those who the MacBook Air works fine.  Apple was smart in limiting the MacBook Air to 4GB.  

If you want 8-16GB of RAM a 512 GB SSD. And, 4 core i7 is useful, then the MacBook Pro fits.  

I used to work at Apple on OS, and Microsoft on Windows.  I run Parallels and Windows 7 on the Macbook Pro which is another reason why 16 GB of memory is nice.

Power of Open Source Hardware and Software: Arduino

Open Compute has been making noise in the data center and IT world open sourcing server and and data center design.

Something that has taken off much bigger is Arduino.

Photo by the Arduino Team

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP).

Here is TED video of one of founders explaining how surprising Arduino's growth has been and what it has been used for.

Zynga's CIO makes a call for energy efficiency

Zynga's CIO Debra Chrapaty wishes for innovation in server power consumption. Below is a video that can you can watch.

Watch live streaming video from gigaomstructure at livestream.com

And, here is a post on the presentation.

Zynga’s biggest disappointment with running its own data center? Power consumption.

Even though electrical power can account for 40 percent of the cost of running large-scale infrastructure, Chrapaty said Zynga has only seen “slight evolutions” in terms of things like server cooling. “We’ve yet to see true advances like alternative-energy-run data centers,” she said. “It’s certainly a topic worth a couple of hours of discussion.”

MacBook Pro or MacBook Air; Are you a Creator or Consumer?

Forbes has an article with a write who looked at the MacBook Pro Retina and chose the Macbook Air.

What is disappointed with articles like this is the author doesn't take the time to explain their needs, and why the MacBook Air was right for them then the MacBook Pro.

One of the simple questions to ask is whether you are Creator of content or a Consumer?  The growth of the iPad is due to how much people are consumers of content.  Any one who uses the iPad as their authoring tool slows their productivity.

The writer of the Forbes article is a Tech Journalist which would put him in the category of creator, but also a creator that pretty much sticks I would guess to words.  Why?

In his article he says his choice is a MacBook Air with 128GB of memory.

I got the low-end model with 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage because that suited me well enough on the 11-inch I had, especially now that I can store data in the cloud.

As soon as you take lots of photos, let alone add videos, the 256GB of storage is a challenge.  Loading photo imaging and video imaging apps will also push the 4GB RAM limit.

Almost everyone talks about the Retina display.  What I am looking at is what Mac do I get for a wide range of researching topics (lots of windows open), image and video editing.  Getting used to the MacBook Air where the SSD drive was done well, getting 512 GB of storage is a priority.  Getting 8GB of memory makes sense with the 512 GB of SSD.

A Macbook Air has a 4GB limit.  the 512 GB SSD is an expensive option that gets you quickly up to the price of the MacBook Pro.

For me, I decided to get a MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM, 512 GB SSD, and Retina display.  I spend time bouncing between MarsEdit, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Aperture, Final Cut Pro.  I travel, but I don't spend a lot of time on my laptop while travelling, rarely using my computer while on a flight. 

Few of you do what I do, so buying MacBook Pro Retina based on my buying one doesn't make sense.  

Why should you buy a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air because another writer says it is right for them?  How many of you are journalists?