Discussion on the design of personal network disk products from the perspective of cloud storage ecological chain

Cloud computing is a popular concept in recent years, the concept of the most close to the common user of one of the branches, that is, personal cloud storage. From the famous Dropbox to the domestic various "network disk" products, more and more netizens began to move their data from the computer hard drive to the cloud.

When we look back at history, we can see that the need to "save a file somewhere (for example, online) and access it anywhere" has always been there.

Many years ago, when we were in the DOS6.22 era, the popular way was to use floppy disks. As long as you copy the file you want to use in a floppy disk, you can bring the floppy disk to the body. Whenever you have a computer with a floppy drive installed, you can use the files on the floppy disk.

Later, a floppy disk 1.44MB capacity began to meet more and more people's needs, and because of technical limitations, the floppy drive reading speed is too slow, coupled with the advent of USB, U disk emerged. This mobile storage device is smaller than the floppy disk, faster than the floppy disk, not easy to damage, importantly, its capacity can be much larger than the floppy disk.

Later, the internet began to become popular, but at that time the internet did not have a very convenient, for ordinary users of the file storage services. So everyone "developed" a unique way: Many friends log into their own mailbox, and then send themselves an e-mail, plus attachments. In this way, the files in the attachment can be stored permanently in the mailbox and can be used on any computer that has access to the Internet. Operation Browser can be more convenient than frequent plug u disk (especially, there are some assembled chassis, front USB interface power supply is insufficient.) We often need to crawl behind the chassis ... More importantly, many mailboxes can be applied for free, even the money to buy storage equipment is saved.

In recent years, we have found another problem, that is, the general mailbox 20MB around the attachment limit is not enough to start. Because people are starting to store more and more files. Some of the mailbox services began to increase the mailbox capacity, but the attachment capacity has not changed, and did not address this part of the user's needs. QQ mailbox that year found this pain point, launched a "large attachment" function, successfully eased this part of the demand. However, perhaps due to cost constraints, "oversized attachments" are usually limited in duration, for example, only for 7 days. Although every 7 days can go to manually click on "Renewal." But once you forget, it's a tragedy.

On the other hand, many people begin to have more than 2 computers and use devices such as smartphones and ipads. In this environment, the need to share (sync) information on all devices is naturally generated. Dropbox found the demand, but the team was not sure how big the demand was. So the smart Dropbox team produced a video called "What is Dropbox", which tells users about a tool called "Dropbox" that not only saves your files, but also automatically synchronizes them to all your devices. The video hits YouTube very high. So they expanded the team and started to really develop the product, and it was a great success.

Looking back over the history of "personal storage needs", we might as well scatter some of the following points:

Storage is the foundation. A cloud storage product that, on the basis of basic functionality, must be stable. Ensure that the user's data is not lost, and that the transport service must be stable to ensure that users can "save" and "get" whenever they want to save or use them. At the same time, in the privacy, speed and other factors in-depth excavation, will give the product bonus points.

What is the storage for? Of course, to "use", that is, "consumption." As a cloud storage product, you can let "storage" drive "consumption". If we can do that so that users can quickly see the contents of his network, can share, and can even modify, will add points to the product. Exaggerate a bit, if we can do this to the extreme, maybe later on the user's computer will not install any other software, all the content generation, precipitation, consumption, can be put to the cloud to complete.

"Consumption" is the downstream of "storage", so what is the "upstream" of storage? In micro-BO, SNS and other products, there are 2 kinds of important ways to produce UGC. One is "create", send a picture, write a paragraph, all are created. Another, is "forwarding", that is, to get the existing content, direct "consumption." So in the upper reaches of the storage, if it can be more convenient and inexpensive for users to get the content they want, the entire ecological chain is complete.

Based on the above 3 points (or 3 links in the eco-chain), gossip and yy are the most basic functions and scenarios:

Storage and transmission

1, the basic storage

Dropbox in its main "sync" function above a lot of effort. Now the Dropbox not only can stabilize the content of the user, but also can use the least bandwidth and time to synchronize and update the content. Dropbox detects that part of a file that is updated, and then updates only that part of the content to the other side without having to "upload" and "download" the entire file.

2. Speed and stability

Dropbox again good, after all, is a foreign service, most of the time is not fast, and sometimes by the wall. This gives the domestic related products natural opportunities. Similar to the Jinshan network of products, the current can be very stable in most parts of the country and quickly provide storage services. With high quality stability and speed, will slowly accumulate user stickiness.

3. Transmission between equipment

Many users have this scenario: they want to send the MP3 to the phone, so they can play it anytime. The easiest way to do this is to use data lines, but it's cumbersome to carry data lines, and it's often plugged in. Now many places provide WiFi, why can not connect WiFi directly send files?

4, Backup and restore [Mobile end]

Mobile phone used for a long time, become more and more slow, want to "restore factory settings", but worry about data loss? Or a new mobile phone, want to quickly transfer the original text messages, photos, contacts? Apple provides icloud services to address these issues. For Android, it's even possible to make tools like ghost.

Content consumption and sources

1, Reading

Reading on a mobile device is a more specific requirement than the need to use a particular app, such as browsing the news, Twitter, etc. Especially in big cities, we spend more and more time commuting to work every day, and these fragments are suitable for reading.

So far, the solution to mobile reading, the more complete is only the Amazon. In addition, related to payment, copyright and other factors, especially in the domestic environment, there will always be a large number of users trying to find their own resources, stored in the mobile device to read. Cloud storage products naturally have the advantage of taking this demand.

If you can open a cloud file directly on your mobile device and provide appropriate reading aids (bookmarks, font size adjustments, and so on), you can withhold part of the user who is reading on the mobile side using the Reading tool. If you join a content source upstream, you can even directly complete a closed loop from content acquisition to consumption within a cloud storage product. Users can also be allowed under the premise, to a certain extent, open the user's content, so that other users can more quickly and easily access resources, and even to search the entire cloud open content.

2, audio and video cloud playback

The idea is similar to reading, but after replacing the text picture with the music video, it is a powerful ecological chain with more imaginative space.

Many users have the need to copy a computer movie to a cell phone or ipad and then watch it on a trip. There are two main ways to implement this type of demand: First, many video site apps offer "save to local" functionality. The user caches the content directly on the mobile device at home with WiFi. Another way is to use the traditional download tools, first download to the computer, and then transferred to the mobile device.

The disadvantage of the first approach is that there is not enough content, and many times, video sharpness is a problem for more discerning users. The disadvantage of the second approach is mainly focused on the time-consuming downloading and transcoding.

In fact, this whole ecological chain, can be based on cloud storage as the core products to complete.

A: "Offline download" feature: If I need to download a 4.8GB movie, the traditional way is to download the computer directly using the Download tool. However, the upstream server may have a slow, if the download time is long, and need to be on the boot. If my network disk can provide such a function, only to throw a pile of BT seeds to a specific folder, the server will automatically download the seed for the file, and then automatically stored in my cloud network disk.

B: "Cloud Automatic transcoding" function: The next day when you get up, open the phone on the network disk app, found that the film has been downloaded, and has completed the automatic transcoding, you can directly on the phone or other mobile devices play.

C: "Cache to local" function: Want to watch this movie on the road, but the traffic is limited, 3G signal and unstable, how to do? Good to do, in the home with WiFi environment, just the complete transfer in the cloud of the movie directly through the network disk app cache to the mobile phone can be. And because it turned into a cell phone playback rate, this file is not 4.8GB, but only 500MB. An iphone can put down a lot of movies, enough to watch the trip!

D: "Sharing" feature: My friends want to see the movie, too. Just click on it to generate a shared link. He opens the link and can automatically deposit it into his network disk. And, since the previous "download", "transcoding" and other work has been completed, he does not need any additional operations can be played on any of his devices or cache.

3. Collection and Content entrance

Theoretically speaking, the network disk and the computer inside the hard disk function is the same. Put the web site into the network, you can form a net Favorites folder, the picture into the network disk, you can become albums, QQ chat record in the network, will own favorite articles into the network disk, notebook notes in the network, can form a different application scenarios. But the premise of all these scenarios and functions is "collect". That is, a powerful content portal.

If a network disk products with powerful browser plug-ins, strong channels to cooperate, you can see any one of the Web pages, news, social networking sites can be UGC all deposited, will greatly enhance the user stickiness of the product.

3. Online documentation/collaborative work

Google Doc is already a very mature service, and with Gmail seamless. Directly view, open, and edit the documents in the Gmail attachment. And Microsoft now has cloud, browser-based Office software, you can directly create editing documents in the browser, its storage services, the SkyDrive is responsible for.

In addition, collaborative work is also a good direction for business users. In the company, often need to share a number of documents, customer information, and sometimes need more people to collaborate to edit. We envision the simplest product model, if a network disk, one of its folders can set permissions, a,b,c three users can edit, create, delete files in this folder, while D,e,f and other users can use the password to view these files, This is a simple product prototype of collaborative work within the enterprise.

4. Personal Data Center

More and more people are starting to have different kinds of electronic devices, PCs, Macs, mobile phones, flat panels, smart TVs, Google Glass, including cars, offices and other places. Each of these devices can be the generation and collection of information, but also may be the consumer of information. So it's urgent to share information on these devices.

The problems and challenges faced

1. Data Security and privacy

First of all, it has to say about data security and personal privacy. This includes two aspects:

First, is the service provider's ethics, the environment and the policy level, in the domestic, you understand.

Second, information security at the technical level.

The issue of data security has been recognized by more and more netizens. In the author's previous research, more than half of the respondents worried that their photos, phone books, chat records and other information stored on the network will be "unsafe." When I asked them why they were "unsafe", many respondents were not able to say specific reasons, but were affected by events, media campaigns, and physiological reactions that were "unsafe".

This level of problem is difficult to solve in the short term, like intermediaries, insurance and other industries, it is difficult to re-establish trust in the short term.

2, transmission rate, flow and stability

The transfer of content between different devices in the network is still a big problem. The current domestic Internet access speed on average and not fast, save a few documents may be OK, if it is taking a lot of photos, transmission and management is a little difficult, if it is video, it is even worse. In mobile Internet, there are still a lot of users using China Mobile 20M monthly GRPs.