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How many times have you left home only to realize that data that you needed was back on your home computer and you cannot access it directly or you want to share a file with an out of town colleague only to realize the file size is larger than your email limitations or that you and your colleague both updated the file and the files are not synchronized.
Potential solutions might be found in cloud computing by the use of online application that stores information in the 'cloud'. For example if the application software is online such as Google Documents then you can write your document online and share it with colleagues or access it yourself through the web on any computer. But if the files are your not typical applications like spreadsheets, word processing files, etc. then the cloud computing might not solve the problem.
For our application we will be looking at geospatial files (geodatabase) that will be generated by one team of researchers in Illinois and another team in Kentucky that uses a Flex map server located in Kentucky. So when the geodatabase is edited by Illinois team and saved it will automatically port to the Flex map server and will be displayed when the map is accessed via of the Internet. This collaboration should be seamless to the user and the researcher, since each team will be updating files in local folders, but will be synchronized in the background. The solution that the team will utilize is Microsoft Live Sync. http://sync.live.com
The test that we have run has three different users accessing the same file folder that contained over 2000 files and multiple gigs of information, one of the users has three different computers connected to the sync folder; one on an on campus computer a pc, another on campus computer which is a mac, and the third is an off campus computer. Therefore, five different computers have a common synchronization with one folder; any changes made to any of the five local folders will result in a change on all five computers. One of the computers used in the test has the folder on an external harddrive. The Live Sync will also work on single users personal folded, in addition once the sync program is running on the remote computer of one user, it can be browsed and files accessed via the web.
What happens if multiple people access the same folder? Since the folders and files are saved on each local computer and there is no interconnection between the files, there is no locking of the file, as would occur on a single computer or a server. Therefore, if two people open the same file at the same time, they both can modify the file, when the file is saved a synchronization will occur on all computers, so the first saved file will be synchronized and then when the second file is saved it will not have the information from the first user since that file was open when the save occurred. So when the second user saves the file, it will overwrite the work of the first user and those edits will be lost on all computers once the synchronization occurs. There are server solutions that will keep the files synchronized or lock other user out of the files, but this solution is free, easy to install and ports through firewalls.
Microsoft Live Sync seems to be a powerful free tool for three uses, synchronization of personal files, sharing files among colleagues and the ability to browser your own personal remote computer passing through firewalls. The limitations are the ability to do simultaneous editing of common files. It does not appear to have any size limitations on the amount of data that will be passed between individuals. The initial synchronization does take some time depending on the size of the file folder.
