OS33 Cloud Drive Creates A Unified Cloud File System

OS33 has announced its OS33 Cloud Drive, which enables managed service provider clients to offer their users a technology that creates a unified file system by bringing together storage from various different private and public cloud technologies. The technology unifies the storage capabilities of Amazon Simple Storage, SharePoint 2010 Doc Libs for Enterprise Content Management and Microsoft Windows on NTFS. In addition to storage access, the technology also provides for automated provisioning of Amazon S3, Windows NTFS and DFS, and SharePoint 2010 storage that can be configured through a browser, giving MSPs the opportunity to offer solutions from multiple cloud storage providers.

"What we’ve really liked about OS33, and what’s evident in the latest release, is that they continue to be the proverbial glue that holds all the cloud resources together," says John Cooper, chief technology officer for NetEffect, a Las Vegas MSP. "It is providing us the ability to leverage existing public cloud technologies with private cloud for our clients. It really brings the best of both worlds together under one umbrella," where others are disjointed and separated, he says. He adds that it gives him the ability to use his computer locally to connect to the cloud. "It solves a problem for us and everyone else: How do you manipulate and move things with your local computer to the cloud and vice versa? As far as I’m aware, there is no alternative product that allows you to do things in the manner they do."

In addition to offering a front end to public and private cloud services, the company also provides a set of automated management tools with which to manage the cloud services, says Alex Osipov, chief technology officer for the Brooklyn, N.Y., OS33. The company is also working with cloud vendors other than Amazon, but he would not say what they were.

Other functionality includes the ability to perform universal copy/paste, access to favorites and recently used files across storage platforms, as well as usage tracking, managed permissions and printing. Users can also migrate data to the Amazon cloud by dragging and dropping it to virtual folders.

What OS33 is announcing is a way in which end users can use Office Web Apps without signing up for Office 365 and using Microsoft’s services, explains Carl Brooks, IT analyst at The 451 Group. The new tool lets end users run a Microsoft Office application on their own computers, save the file using Web Apps to their own network, and access it from anywhere and have any changes show up everywhere, he says. OS33 effectively beat Microsoft at its own game in Office 365 and in the cloud, and did something with its products that Microsoft engineers can't even do, he says.

The software, which is available now, is free to MSPs but is priced from $2 to $10 per month per user, which the MSP would charge to the user.

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