We quietly launched the WEDOS CD (Cloud Disk) service at the beginning of last month in a test run. We haven’t even done any major advertising for it yet. It only appeared in our newsletter and we mentioned it a few times on social media. Even so, in about a month since the launch, the number of active WEDOS CDs is 777. But what we are most excited about is your interest in it and the large amount of feedback 🙂
What is actually a WEDOS CD
WEDOS CD is (not only) a smart file storage. Upload your files to it and use online apps to work with them. Just use a regular internet browser. It can also serve as a remote desktop for regular office work.
As it is a cloud-based online service, there is a strong emphasis on teamwork. The OnlyOffice office suite allows you to edit a document with multiple people in real time. One person can write and another person can proofread. There is also the option to add comments and chat to each file.
However, OnlyOffice goes far beyond a standard office suite. It has lots of extras that are constantly evolving. For example, how would you like an OCR function (converting text in an image to text that you just paste into a document), source code highlighting, a translator, an explanatory dictionary, or a simple photo editor?
There are two ways to upload files to a WEDOS CD. The most popular is the synchronization of directories between the computer and the WEDOS CD. Whenever you edit a file in the synchronized directory on your computer, it will change on the WEDOS CD and vice versa. You can synchronise the directory via WEDOS CD between multiple devices. So you can have the data available and always up-to-date on your PC, laptop and mobile phone. This will make it incredibly easy to switch between devices.
In case you share a folder with multiple people, what they do with it will be immediately visible on all your devices. For example, your colleague can instantly synchronise photos from their mobile phone via a shared folder with you in the office.
And this is just the beginning. Maybe we should have chosen the name WEDOS CK – WEDOS Cloud Office 🙂
The second option is to connect as an “external disk” via the WebDAV protocol(instructions for Windows). Via WebDAV it is theoretically possible to link your website to a WEDOS CD.
Of course, files from the WEDS CD can also be shared via a web browser. There is a range of options. From normal sharing, to password-protected access, to limited validity settings. So you don’t have to deal with email file limits anymore. You simply share the file via WEDOS CD and send the download link to the email recipient. There is also a simple download log so you can see if you downloaded the file.
To write what all WEDOS CD can do and how creatively it can be used would take dozens or rather hundreds of pages 🙂
But consider that it can do a lot: files, file sharing, file uploading, office applications, exports to different formats, notes, galleries, photos, linking to email, versioning, ransomware protection, viewing different medical formats, saving passwords, viewing videos, syncing files and contacts and calendars and SMS, keeping appointments, … and the list goes on. And we also delight in creating online cookbooks…
Behind the scenes of WEDOS CD
WEDOS CD is built on the proven NextCloud solution, which competes with the most well-known solutions such as Google Drive, Office 365, Dropbox and many others. It emphasises security, has a large developer and user base and, most importantly, reflects the demands of the times. In many ways, NextCloud has a great future ahead of it and was such a clear choice for us. All we had to do was modify it for the needs of hundreds of thousands of customers 🙂
For the service, we selected a dedicated HPE Cloudline CL5800 Gen9 Server with two Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2680 v4 2.4GHz processors, 512GB of RAM, and 100 branded 10TB hard drives. So in total you can create up to 1 PB WEDOS CD on 1 storage 🙂
The management of user accounts is handled by WEDOS ID. Since we were mainly thinking about companies, we had to come up with a simple system for user management. As you know, setting up accounts in all systems for new employees is not always easy and when one leaves it is even harder to cancel access. It should be easy for us. You will only have to create and cancel everything once via the WEDOS ID service. You’ll be logging in through it everywhere. You create it, click which services it can access, and you’re done. The user will leave you and you will either cancel their WEDOS ID or just remove their access.
For now, WEDOS ID is only used for emails and WEDOS CDs. However, once we launch WEDOS APPs (working title), which is SaaS, you will be able to roll out hundreds of services and assign users via WEDOS ID. You will have central control over everything from our customer administration.
Our original plans
When we developed the service, we based it on what we would like and what would make our job easier. And that’s on a personal, family and corporate level. We have been using WEDOS CD in the company for several months now and many processes have been greatly simplified. Basically, we cannot talk about progress but rather about jumping to a whole new level. You know who does what, what condition it’s in, you can easily assign help, etc.
Based on this experience, three variants were developed:
- WEDOS CD Free – 3 GB free, expandable up to 100 GB with various rewards. Designed for one user (WEDOS ID).
- WEDOS CD Family – 3 TB for 200 CZK/month, for each additional 1 TB 200 CZK, up to 5 users.
- WEDOS CD Office – 3 TB for 350 CZK/month, for each additional 1 TB 350 CZK, up to 10 users + 10 for each TB.
The Family option should have encryption where we hold the encryption key. In a theoretical theft, the attacker would gain nothing.
In addition, the WEDOS CD Office version was to allow “non-users” to upload files via an Internet browser to a shared directory. So if you have for example an e-shop and you need a customer to upload documents that have tens of megabytes, then WEDOS CD Office could be used for that as well.
Furthermore, WEDOS CD Office should have an encryption key that only the customer will have. No one, including us, would have access to the data. A super-secret service could come in and take the hard drives, but they wouldn’t get anything off them without the encryption key.
We did not plan to provide backups for the service. We all use the WEDOS CD together with the computer (via synchronisation). So if there is a serious failure and the data on the WEDOS CD is lost, after all users are connected, the data will be reloaded from their computers onto the WEDOS CD.
We mainly wanted to use the number of files as a limitation for the services. We thought we had set them reasonably high, but as it turns out, a service similar to WEDOS CD is used by many people quite differently.
How our original plans have changed and how WEDOS CD will look like
We collect all feedback and statistical data for each of our services. Everything is evaluated and we react to everything. Without it, we wouldn’t be the biggest hosting in the country. For the WEDOS CD, we anticipated that the data collection would take longer. We were surprised by both the interest in the service itself and the level of feedback. The WEDOS CD service is clearly lacking on the market here, despite a lot of foreign competition.
So what did we find?
Backups are essential for somebody and we are supposed to make them
Quite a lot of questions were related to data backup. Even though we explained how WEDOS CD works and that you can back up your data to external storage (even a WEDOS disk) or even a competing service similar to WEDOS CD, we understood that this is not what you want.
Your requirements are:
- Data backed up automatically.
- Backups are 100% taken care of on our end.
- Redundancy (more WEDOS CDs) is not interesting.
For the time being, we are working with the option of an additional service, where we would take care of the data backup completely. The approximate price is 50 CZK for 1 TB of backups. But we’ll see.
These are not backups for user use. Small things like deleted or overwritten files can be solved with WEDOS CDs using the recycle bin and revisions.
Any “luxury” that might increase the price is unnecessary
In the test run, the data on our servers is not encrypted. The encryption was planned for live operation, with the expectation that it would affect the final price. However, from surveys and feedback, we found that there is no interest in data encryption.
In general, NextCloud is one of the most secure solutions in the world. It also has its own bug bounty program with a $10,000 reward and works with HackerOne, where thousands of hackers and security teams from around the world earn tens of millions of dollars a year by exposing security holes.
All WEDOS CD data will be in our WEDOS DC1 data centre, where our servers and technology are used. No outsiders have access to the servers. DC1 is a 24-hour operation and our staff are here 24/7. To get to the servers, someone would have to get past two security doors, bars and locked seagulls. The entire building is divided into sectors and has individual security. There are cameras everywhere. We have a hotline to the local police 200 meters away.
As mentioned, only our employees are in the building. Only a small group of technicians have access to the servers. Absolutely all employees have to undergo quite demanding psychological tests, which are tailor-made, last 4-6 hours and are conducted by a psychologist in his private office.
We have very well set up company processes. We even have ISO 27001 (Information Security Management System) certification. Now we are preparing for the specialized ISO 27017 (Information Security for Cloud Services).
We try to do our best for security and our customers know it. Therefore, encrypting the data on our repositories is not a priority for them. For this reason we decided to leave all 3 tariffs without encryption, which would also increase the price.
We had a few more redundancy-related things planned, but most customers don’t care if it raises the price. Rather, we should be looking for ways to be even cheaper 🙂
If you protect the data, then completely
Of course, this does not mean that there is no interest in data encryption. We have been contacted by several people who specifically want to pay extra to have complete control over their data. And that means they don’t want WEDOS ID at the same time. In other words, “it is none of our business who stores what data there”.
They are interested in a barebones instance of the WEDOS CD, completely separate from the others, where they will create their own user accounts as they see fit. Everything will be encrypted and only the administrator will have the encryption key. We can’t access the data either. Never. They cannot be accessed by anyone who does not have the appropriate encryption key.
This is more or less what we had in mind from the beginning, but more within the WEDOS VIP program. Due to the demand, we are considering a fourth tariff that would include all this automatically. Completely secure solution – WEDOS CD variant Secret or Secure…
An “unlimited” number of files is essential
This was a surprise to us. We thought of WEDOS CD as a service for storing photos and work files. We didn’t think anyone would want to use it as a development environment. In general, WEDOS CDs and synchronization applications do not care what directories they work with. It can be a folder /www/ and the developer can transfer his work between multiple machines, where he can use for example LAMP/WAMP. Some frameworks have tens of thousands of files, so the limits of a WEDOS CD can easily be reached.
It’s a bit tricky because we have included these cases in the 1% for which WEDOS CDs will not be available. It just seems that file limits are bothering more potential users.
For the paid WEDOS CD variants we thus considered “unlimited” files. Technically it should work and the hardware should handle it. We’ll just have to test it properly.
With the FREE variant, the number of files will certainly move. We are waiting for more statistical data.
Conclusion
We monitor and evaluate everything. The service runs more or less without major complications. The biggest problem for us so far is the complicated WEDOS ID, where simplification is planned. As far as WEDOS CD is concerned, many users are not used to such a service. They still only know “dumb” repositories. They don’t see what it can do and how much time and money it can save. That’s why we are planning to prepare a set of how-to tips. We are also considering a contest for the most original exploit 🙂