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In the November 2000 issue of Network Magazine, we devoted a feature to Storage Service Providers (ssPs), which provide managed data storage services (see "Satisfying the Thirst for Storage," November 2000, page 70). Now Mangosoft, a Massachusetts-based software company with a five-year background in "pooled caching" techniques, has teamed with a leading ssp to create a unique service for businesses of all sizes.
The service, Mangomind, relies on StorageNetworks as its SSP, Exodus as its network infrastructure provider, and RSA Security as its provider of software encryption. These partners lend street credibility, but what is really important is the software. After all, many other companies already provide browserbased access to remote storage. A few (Netdrive and X:drive, for example) even provide software so that Internet resources appear as a drive to Explorer and other Windows applications.
These solutions, however, are fundamentally single-user. The online storage is designed to be accessed by a single person at a time, and security is generally limited to simple username/password authentication.
Mangomind, in contrast, emulates a network drive, with file- and directory-level permission settings for both individual users and...