Home

Overview

Program

Schedule of Events

Committee

Registration

Contributors

Charleston

Hotel

Travel Information

Web-based File Storage: Now and the Future

Presenter: Jim Bostick, Virginia Commonwealth University

Web-based storage enables people to not only get to their files from anywhere, but also to securely share them with others for collaboration. Since storage is getting cheaper faster than any other component of technology, as evidenced by the ability of Google to offer 1 GB of free storage in their Gmail, it is possible that we are on the verge of a paradigm shift. Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly & Associates writes that Gmail is "a watershed event in the evolution of the Internet." He also states that "Gmail, in some sense, shows us that once storage and bandwidth become cheap enough, a more tightly coupled, centralized architecture is a real alternative, even on the Internet." This presentation will describe Virginia Commonwealth University's experience with the Xythos WebFile Server for web-based file storage and collaboration and with the Blackboard Content Management system which is built on Xythos. Come hear how web-based file storage is changing VCU now, then look into the future and discuss whether Internet-based storage might change everything.

Presentation (ppt)