Every business has a need to share data – important files of specifications, standards, pricing policies and the rest – with a select few, such as business partners. For big businesses there are a number of (often expensive) options for doing this, but for the small business the choice is limited. That is where Pogoplug, from US company Cloud Engines Inc, may have a role.
Though initially designed with the consumer market in mind, and especially those with large extended families and a penchant for large photo libraries, the technology behind it is ideally suited as a tool for building a baby private cloud for any small business looking for a way to share information with just those that need to see it.
It operates in conjunction with up to 4 external hard drives, allowing external access for selected users to selected folders or files. That external access is useful for the primary user – so that new files can be backed up while working remotely, and all files on the external drive can be accessed and updated as required.
But the key trick is that it also allows users to specify other users that can access files, and specify the files they can access. These can be much more than just simple documents as well. Its consumer heritage means that handling tasks such as streaming video is part of the package.
So for a small business it becomes possible, for example, to set up a folder contained the shared files and then send specified individuals the login details via the Pogoplug website (www.pogoplug.com ). That user then logs in to the website where they are validated and allowed access to the files specified by the user. It also handles all the security aspects of every session. Setting it up is reckoned to take no more than a minute.
At £99 it represents a cost-effective little tool for building small, private clouds that can be accessed by just the people the business specifies, from anywhere with Internet access.
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