Dropbox, Google Docs, and other web services

[Ian Stokes-Rees]

On 9/15/10 9:52 PM, Edward Ned Harvey wrote:
> Do your users use services such as dropbox and google docs etc?  Which ones?

I work at Harvard, and our lab director has gone in big time for Google
Apps (it is free for academic institutions).  He sets up surveys,
spreadsheets, docs, and web pages all using Google Apps, plus it is now
our main lab calendaring system.  I am a lot less keen on it, but after
several painful days (literally: I'd estimate 20+ hours) of
configuration (read: trial and error) about 9 months ago, I now have
multiple calendars configured which sync properly to my iPod touch, and
integrate with my personal calendars and those of my wife.  There are
lots of hidden "gotchas" in the process, and Google has a thoroughly
broken security model.  They don't seem to model "people", but rather
"email addresses", and even then different parts of the Googleverse can
authenticate the same "email address" using different systems -- AFAICT,
Google thinks I'm 4 different "entities", which makes it a royal PITA to
link external actions to one of those entities with another entity. 
Flushing cookies and cache, or running multiple browsers is now a
regular part of my life.  And if you have two "Google App" accounts you
want to work between, you're potentially in for a world of pain, esp. if
a domain administrator registers a domain you use in Google into Google
Apps (as someone who manages my personal email account domain did a year
ago).

I also started using DropBox about a year ago, had some issues with it
at first, ignored it, then came back to it about 6 months ago, and now
several people in our lab use it extensively.  I have also setup
per-user command-line based access to DropBox folders from some
Linux-based shell servers that we run, so users can sync their files to
their ssh shell accounts.  It is a great system, and I've only had a few
problems with it.  The main warning is that it is not meant for file
sharing or collaborative editing.  You can get away with multiple people
(or computers) opening the same file, but you better make sure only one
is writing files.  It doesn't do any magic which makes it possible for 5
people to share a picture folder and all edit the same image at the same
time.  Even having a laptop and desktop open and editing the same file
(e.g. a Word document) at the same time by the same user can cause problems.

I have a JungleDisk account (Amazon S3) which I really should retire --
I think DropBox provides all the functionality I ever wanted from
JungleDisk, plus it works "offline".  That said, JungleDisk has some
great value-added features for Amazon S3, and I don't regret having paid
for a premium service, and my Amazon S3 storage (a few gigs) costs me a
couple bucks each year, so it is barely worth my time to retire it.

> If they don't use it, are they prohibited from using it, either forcefully
> (security software, firewalls, etc) or passively (e.g. "honor system"
> company policy)?
>
>  
>
> If they do use it, do you, or IT/IS, or any other force wish they could take
> it away?

DropBox:

Files potentially aren't backed up and managed the same way.  Plus it is
easy to dump stuff in there that makes Home directories contain content
that should possibly be elsewhere (so I've moved my Dropbox folder onto
localdisk, rather than my NFS home directory).

File sharing (and data exposure) is different.  Content is also stored
by DropBox, not just replicated between user hosts.

I prefer Wiki's for managing data, rather than Google Docs, and I am not
a fan of Google-generated websites, and think it is counter productive
for us to put *any* content there, but that is just my opinion.

> What are the reasons?  (Pros & Cons)

See above.

> If there is an obstacle that prevents users from using such services ... Do
> you think users wish they could have it?  Which service(s) do you think they
> wish they could have?

DropBox is pretty cool.  We're introducing it to lots of our
collaborators, rather than emailing files back and forth, we setup a
shared folder and send them a link/invitation.  It provides a much more
fluid way to share content.  Emailing files has always been a terrible
way to collaborate.  Anyway, our collaborators are all very happy with
DropBox so far.  They seem to be able to setup accounts quickly and
easily, and (as a generally non-technical group) don't appear to have
any problem using it: just use it as another folder with files in it on
your computer, and "magic happens" so the files are automatically shared
with a group of people.  People like magic.

> What size organization are you?

Effectively, we are a lab of ~7 people who operate our own IT
infrastructure.

> In your organization, who has the role of making these decisions?

For most of it, we just do it without having to ask anyone.  Some
things, like allocating hkl.hms.harvard.edu domains to google apps,
takes some more negotiations between our lab director, IT, and the HMS
dean who oversees IT.  Thankfully faculty generally get what they want,
rather than being dictated to by IT, so it has all worked out so far.

> I know all these answers for the locations where I work, but I don't want to
> bias any of you by planting my own opinions first.

Interested to hear what others say.

Ian