[CentOS] School cloud solution

[Ljubomir Ljubojevic]

Vreme: 11/07/2011 06:34 AM, Trey Dockendorf piše:
> On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Daniel Bird<dbird at sgul.ac.uk>  wrote:
>
>> On 06/11/2011 00:49, Ljubomir Ljubojevic wrote:
>>> Look into google 'apps' (which is really corporatized google
>>>> documents).   you edit your documents via your web browser, everything
>>>> is hosted in googles cloud so its accessible everywhere.  It supports
>>>> written 'word' style documents, spreadsheets, presentations (powerpoint
>>>> like) and a few other types.
>>>>
>>>> yes, it costs money per person per year (up to 25 users are free), but
>>>> I'd have to assume there's an educational discount.
>>>>
>> Google apps for Education is free*
>> http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/edu/
>>
>> *in the UK at least; and "free" depends on your POV.
>>
>> D
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>
>
> My College at Texas A&M University is also looking for such capability.
>   The issue we ran into is that Texas laws restrict where data can be stored
> for use by state funded institutions.  Ensuring data stays in Texas is
> nearly impossible with "cloud" services, but apparently Google is willing
> to make that happen.  They have told my University that they will offer
> their services for free.  I would definitely look into it.  I don't know
> the specifics of how it's implemented, but I doubt they would require gmail
> accounts, because we are looking to do it for our faculty/staff and we
> already discourage use of Google services for work related material.  They
> will likely integrate it into whatever you already use.
>
> Unfortunately there aren't a lot of great open source solutions out there
> for "cloud storage" that can compete with Google or others.  Besides what's
> already been mentioned there is Sparkleshare, http://sparkleshare.org/ .  I
> use it personally on Linux and OS X with ease, but the Windows portion is
> still in beta.  Another my organization attempted was iFolder,
> http://www.kablink.org/ifolder. One I haven't worked with yet, but have
> seen is http://owncloud.org/.

Using Google Docs/Cloud or any external storage system has security 
issues, since you are not owner of your own files. If some security 
agency decides to browse your files, for any reason, because they feal 
like it, it is questionable if Google would stop them.

And there are Vendor Lock-in issues as well.

Using WebDav is much better. It is like direct access FTP server. And 
you can host it on your own server, having no access or ownership issues.

One solution is for users to setup system wide WebDav access (so any app 
can access them), or to use for example

http://extensions.libreoffice.org/extension-center/webdav-integration

or

http://code.google.com/p/ooo2gd/

LibreOffice/OpenOffice add-ons for easy access to documents from 
those/that Office bundle,

or even simly using this guide:

http://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Opening_a_Document_Using_WebDAV_over_HTTPS 


(less comfortable).

WebDav is like FTP just a storage location, there is no vendor lock-in 
in documents you must use in order to access your data.


-- 

Ljubomir Ljubojevic
(Love is in the Air)
PL Computers
Serbia, Europe

Google is the Mother, Google is the Father, and traceroute is your
trusty Spiderman...
StarOS, Mikrotik and CentOS/RHEL/Linux consultant