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Setting Up Your Own Personal Cloud

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Unlike many Open Source applications, ownCloud appears to come with extensive documentation. It supports data encryption both when transferring data between devices and when storing data on an external server.Okay, let’s have a show of hands. How many of you are sick of being pelted with the term “The Cloud”? For that matter, what is this cloud thing? As I’m sure many of you have discovered by now, just like the term “LIMS”, it seems that everyone has their own definition of what “The Cloud” is. You will frequently find the term used to refer to anything that incorporates the Internet. Several formal definitions have actually been attempted. The most commonly recognized definition is the one developed by The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and described in their Special Publication 800-145.1

As Robert Davis summarizes it, the NIST definition consists of five primary characteristics:2

  • on-demand self-service
  • broad network access
  • resource pooling
  • rapid elasticity
  • measured services

Even without looking at the explanation of these terms, I think it’s obvious that many products and approaches being pushed as ‘The Cloud,’ are really not cloud related at all. Most of the discussion so far has been about public clouds (such as Amazon’s AWS service) and private clouds (which might be setup for use by a single company), as well as various hybrids. Whether you have been aware of it or not, it is likely that you have been using the cloud for some time. If you are a user of Dropbox, Google Drive, Apple iCloud or Microsoft’s SkyDrive, you’ve been playing in the cloud. However, the term personal cloud is starting to turn up with increasing prevalence.

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In simplest terms, a personal cloud is a cloud under your direct control running on your hardware. Think home office, for example. The concept of a personal cloud has been compared by the Personal Clouds Wiki to the disruptive effect that personal computers had with their appearance in the 1970s.3 They include a clear comparison of the three major components of a personal cloud in relation to a PC, as well as a variety of optional components.

Despite Gartner’s forecast that the personal cloud will replace the personal computer by 2014,4 it and its various permutations appear to be alive and well. So, perhaps we should take a look at what vendors really mean when they talk about you setting up your personal cloud. It turns out that what many of them meant was a personal cloud storage system. Good coverage of a number of these devices can be found in an article by Geoffrey Goetz.5 Some of these approaches are strictly software based, such as a subscription to LogMeIn Pro, while others require you to add what is called a network attached storage (NAS) device to your network. One of the advantages of a NAS device is that you don’t have to keep a PC permanently up and running. The variety of these devices has exploded, and you will see brand names, such as Transporter, Zyxel, Western Digital and Seagate. The storage capacity of these devices and their capabilities vary widely. Some units come in a fixed configuration, so if you buy a 1TB version, that is what you are stuck with. Others are designed with built-in drive bays, so that you can add additional drives or swap-out a small drive for a larger one. Some allow you to set them up as DLNA6 servers, or to selectively sync directories between hard drives. If you are the tinkering type, you can build a system similar in functionality to these using an old PC.7

Another type of personal cloud storage device is Wi-Fi enabled hard drives, many capable of running off of an internal battery for around eight to 12 hours. You will find these devices from vendors such as Kingston, SanDisk, Corsair and Buffalo America. Some of these devices are relatively low capacity, such as 32GB, but others have a capacity of 1TB or more. Depending on the unit you are looking at, some of these are designed primarily as DLNA servers, while others are straight file servers. Even the DLNA ones you can normally access using a WebDAV client. Some of these devices encrypt your information on the drive and during transfer, others don’t, so select with care

Still and all, these are still principally storage devices, they don’t allow you to run applications in the cloud, only download and run them. But things are starting to change. There are a variety of Open Source projects developing systems that will not only operate as a storage cloud, but will allow you to run applications as well. One of these already available and in wide use is ownCloud v.8.1 Server Edition,8 which is distributed under the AGPLv3 license.9,10 Unlike many Open Source applications, ownCloud appears to come with extensive documentation. The ownCloud Web site lists the extensive features of this product,11 as well as some of the applications already built to run on it.12 Those interested in learning more about the application or assisting in its development can check out its repository on GitHub.13 Commercial support is available for users of ownCloud Enterprise Edition, which also includes additional features. OwnCloud supports data encryption both when transferring data between devices and when storing data on an external server.

Jonathan Feldman, of the publication InformationWeek, suggests that one of the reasons for the spiking interest in personal clouds is due to The Snowden Effect.14 For anyone who has somehow managed not to hear of Edward Snowden, he is the whistle blower who revealed the extent of National Security Agency (NSA) spying, as Feldman puts it, on everyone. While many organizations encrypt the data stored with them and pledge not to release the keys, the government can basically go to them at any time, thanks to The Patriot Act, with a National Security Letter (NSL)15 and demand any information they want, usually accompanied by a gag order preventing the recipient from even acknowledging that they’ve received an NSL, let alone what was requested. “They do not require prior approval from a judge, only the assertion that the information demanded is relevant to a national-security investigation.”16 If you have never seen a NSL, you really should take a look at one, as they are quite instructive, if you can read around all of the material that was redacted.17 Feldman also speculates that IT organizations will likely react as badly to the personal cloud as they did to employee owned smart phones and USB drives. Personally, I think it worth considering starting on construction of your personal cloud right now!

References

  1. P. Mell, T. Grance, SP 800-145; The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing, (2011). http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf (accessed March 10, 2015).

  2. D. Roberts, What is Cloud Computing? – A Tutorial, Leverhawk. (2012). http://leverhawk.com/what-is-cloud-computing-tutorial-2012120519 (accessed March 16, 2015).

  3. Personal Clouds, Personal Clouds, Pers. Clouds. (2014). http://personal-clouds.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed July 30, 2015).

  4. C. Pettey, R. van der Meulen, Gartner Says the Personal Cloud Will Replace the Personal Computer as the Center of Users’ Digital Lives by 2014, Gart. Inc. (2012). http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1947315 (accessed July 31, 2015).

  5. G. Goetz, How to set up your own personal home cloud storage system, Gigaom Res. (2014). https://gigaom.com/2014/03/01/how-to-set-up-your-own-personal-home-cloud-storage-system/ (accessed July 30, 2015).

  6. J.R. Joyce, How Digital Living Network Alliance can make Life Easier, Sci. Comput. (2015). http://www.scientificcomputing.com/blogs/2015/06/how-digital-living-network-alliance-can-make-life-easier (accessed August 2, 2015).

  7. R. Walters, How to make your own personal media cloud using free programs and an old PC, ExtremeTech. (2011). http://www.extremetech.com/computing/101441-create-your-own-personal-media-cloud (accessed July 30, 2015).

  8. ownCloud, ownCloud.org, ownCloud. (2015). https://owncloud.org/ (accessed July 30, 2015).

  9. Wikipedia, Affero General Public License, Wikipedia Free Encycl. (2015). https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Affero_General_Public_License&oldid=671725157 (accessed July 31, 2015).

  10. Free Software Foundation, GNU Affero General Public License, GNU Oper. Syst. (November 19). http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html (accessed July 31, 2015).

  11. ownCloud, ownCloud.org | Features, ownCloud. (2015). https://owncloud.org/features/ (accessed July 30, 2015).

  12. ownCloud, ownCloud | Applications, ownCloud. (2015). https://apps.owncloud.com/ (accessed July 30, 2015).

  13. GitHub, ownCloud, GitHub. (n.d.). https://github.com/owncloud (accessed July 31, 2015).

  14. J. Feldman, Is Personal Cloud As Disruptive As Personal Computer?, InformationWeek. (2013). http://www.informationweek.com/is-personal-cloud-as-disruptive-as-personal-computer/d/d-id/1113260 (accessed July 30, 2015).

  15. ACLU, National Security Letters, Am. Civ. Lib. Union. (2015). https://www.aclu.org/national-security-letters (accessed July 30, 2015).

  16. M. Bustillos, What It’s Like to Get a National-Security Letter, New Yorker. (June 27). http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-its-like-to-get-a-national-security-letter (accessed July 31, 2015).

  17. M.B. Mukasey, AG Mukasey 2008 Declaration, Am. Civ. Lib. Union. (2015). https://www.aclu.org/foia-document/ag-mukasey-2008-declaration (accessed July 31, 2015).

John Joyce is a laboratory informatics specialist based in Richmond, VA. He may be reached at [email protected].

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