In 2014, the innovation continues at dinCloud! We’ve released a lot of new products, and here’s the inside story; read on!
dinDaaS, Google, and webRTC — what rock have you been living under?
dinDaaS standard — dinDaaS isn’t a replacement for dinHVD; both products will continue forward each with their own roadmap, as they serve 2 different puproses. dinHVD has won #1/first place awards for years from Network World Magazine, UpStart Cloud Computing Conference and many others for its ability to surf 1080P videos in YouTube, its rich set of granular features, ability to handle flash, VOIP, and other things better than the competition. It uses client software which supports the widest number of endpoints (windows, mac osx, iphone, ipad, android tablets & phones, linux, etc.) ever.
The design goals for dinDaaS powered by HTML5 were originally a challenge to us made 1 year ago by Google to create a virtual desktop that wasn’t hampered by client software and didn’t need to use unreliable tricks like multimedia redirection when viewing flash heavy websites. dinDaaS takes virtual desktop to a whole new level with support for graphics beyond flash, such as Microsoft Silverlight. Nonetheless, flash capabiilties are greatly enhanced which is obvious when visiting websites like msnbc.com! As a result, dinDaaS is the only desktop in the world that can surf NetFlix! dinDaaS supports 1 monitor, and was designed with security in mind meaning it intentionally has limitations: no usb devices are supported and only network printing (not local) is allowed. It takes less than 30 seconds to install the Google Chrome Browser extension from the Google web store, so as soon as you provision some dinDaaS at dinCloud you’re ready to rock. Google in mid-January 2014 refused 3rd party development of extensions to their browswer without going through the web store where they can validate the code in order to protect their users against malware. We may program dinDaaS extensions to other browsers in HTML5 but that will come in late 2014. dinDaaS can scale infinitely without individualized connection brokers and can be integrated with Microsoft Active Directory like dinHVD, but can is assigned to users initially via email address (which kicks off the onboarding emails and instructions, pin selection etc.) so it’s very easy to use with 3rd party auditors, contractors, developers & more. dinDaaS supports any endpoint which has Google Chrome Browser with extensions; this includes windows (except RT which is the ARM chipset), mac osx, linux (ubuntu desktop rocks!), and chrome. I know Google Chrome browser is on ipad, iphone and android but those versions don’t yet support extensions (no idea when or if they will…ask Google) so dinDaaS won’t run on them.
HTML 5 is a very significant technology advancement — and that’s why we support it. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, take note of Google’s purchase and release into the open source community of webRTC or “real time communications” where network, voice & video are integrated directly into the web browser. If you’re a fan of VOIP soft phones like SKYPE and others, imagine this: your virtual destkop, video, phone, chat, and so much more all integrated into your web browser and easily customizable with skins, layout, and more — all with layers of security and isolation that are unprecedented thanks to Cloud!
dinStorage D3
cloud storage — Amazon originally made S3 protocol famous and it’s a good read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_D3 The S3 protocol is used by 100’s of applications worldwide (symantec, veeam, commvault, & my favorite — http://cyberduck.io/ –FREE! and others) for backup and even things like cloud cifs shares aka gateway servers (servers you add as vm’s to your local virtual environment which replicate everything to the cloud) as well as cloud drives like DropBox and others which are built on top of S3. Even if your backup s/w doesn’t directly support S3, you can often copy the backup files it generates to the Cloud using dragondisk or other s/w which *is* S3 compatible.
As widely adopted as it has become, S3 had a few drawbacks. 1) It didn’t always perform well over the Internet for large datasets. 2) The disks it wound up on at Amazon aren’t encrypted 3) Amazon’s OUTbound transfer fees if you ever had to do a restore were very prohibitive. Even a regular backup with free INbound transfer fees still had enough acknowledgement packets and other return traffic that you felt the bite of OUTbound transfer fees. 4) For all the above reasons it was very hard to calculate what your costs would be prior to getting a real eye opening bill (even with the calculators Amazon provided).
Why dinCloud D3 – An Amazon S3 API-compatible cloud storage alternative? 1) We provide many different connectivity options to fit your budget via dinTransport 2) All of our D3 storage is encrypted 3) NO TRANSFER FEES INbound or OUTbound 4) Flat-rate @ 15 cents per GB per month means predictable billing (we actually want you to use and enjoy D3!)
dinTransport
dinTransport for connectivity — We now have a wide range of connectivity options for our customers & Channel Resellers. dinTransport may be quoted ala carte or as connectivity to the Cloud. We can offer 1) Internet circuits 2) MPLS full mesh connections for all your locations in the United States 3) SIP trunks to your existing PBX for VOIP 4) Cloud hosted phones (Cisco, Avaya) 5) Private connections to the Cloud using metro fiber & national private IP transit backbones for p2p connectivity 6) Direct connections from your cage to ours at Equinix LA3 (Los Angeles) or CH3 (Chicago) and other sites at 1gbps to 10gbps. 7) P2P VPN for day 1 connectivity — all provisioned & configured via dinManage! This connection becomes an automatic failover (we help you configure it) when you select other options (#1-6) above as your primary path to the Cloud. We have redundant carrier grade NNI gateways with the following carriers who service the United States, including but not limiited to: AT&T, XO, CenturyLink/Qwest, Megapath/Covad, Time Warner, Sprint, Windstream/Paetec, Cogent, and others. Ask dinCloud or one of our channel resellers TODAY to get a quote.
dinManage v2, WorldWide Expansion
dinManage to admin your virtual private datacenter (“vpdc”) — 1Q2014 we are entirely re-writing dinManage to offer Cloud metrics, QoS, add the D3 storage management interface, and so many other options. As 2014 progresses we will also extend this to our Channel so that they can put up datacenters linked to dinCloud.com and get an even bigger share of the pie while offering expanded geographic and other capabilities to our customers.
New Locations Worldwide — We have a global contract with Equinix who has 98 locations worldwide. http://www.equinix.com/locations If you want to be in one of these locations even if we haven’t expanded there yet, we can spin you up in 60 days or less for deals >= $20k/month. Nonetheless, we will expand to London (LON), Sydney (SYD), Rio de Janeiro (RIO), and Hong Kong (HKG). Part of what’s driving this is the demand for D3 storage in different legal jurisdictions, the global expansion of many of our USA based customers, and the need for virtual desktops in places where security is top of mind. Domestically, we have an eye for New York (NYC) and Dallas (DAL) expansion in due time.
Conclusion
Feedback is King! — I really want to hear from you! Even if you’re not a customer of dinCloud, tell me what we could create that would compel you to become one! We look forward to earning your business every single day.
Thank you! — to all our existing customers worldwide from the Fortune 100 to the SMB (we love you guys!), our growing channel of Distributors (Ingram Micro, Arrow) and Channel Partners (Insight Enterprises, Pomeroy, CDW, etc.) without whom our “rebel cloud” would not exist. We are here to help your business grow; we love to have fun & make money in the Cloud.
Best wishes, always. — /\/\ike L. Chase, co-founder/EVP/CTO of dinCloud.com
For more information on our Cloud Solutions, please visit our Products page or request information to speak with a cloud specialist.
