Interviews

posted on 21 July 2008 15:34

MemoPal is one of the new breed of cloud backup service providers along with EMC's Mozy Unit and Carbonite. It is based in Italy and adds remote file access to a users' files in the cloud.

We asked MemoPal chief technology officer, Gianluca Granero, some questions to help position MemoPal in the cloud storage service landscape (cloudscape?).

B&F: How does the MemoPal service compare to Apple's TimeMachine?

Gianluca Granero: Apple's TimeMachine is on a local external hard drive, Memopal is an online service.

We'll give very soon our users the ability to browse their computers going back in time. Time Machine keeps only a few copies (today, yesterday, one week ago, 1 month ago and 6 months ago), we keep all versions.

Time Machine has a beautiful interface highly integrated with MacOs, Memopal is cross plattform and we so have a more basic interface.

B&F: How does MemoPal compare and contrast to EMC's Mozy service and Iomega's Retrospect/Mozy combination?

Gianluca Granero: EMC has made a good move. We are now very focused on the development of our system but we are closing partnership agreements with NAS (network-attached storage) productors for integration.

B&F: Is the future of backup for home and small businesses a combination of local disk-to-disk backup with a further backup to a remote in-the-Internet cloud?

Gianluca Granero: Yes, again we firmly believe that in the mid-term backup for SOHO and small business is made of local, external or network-attached drives, which are cheap and performing, but unreliable, paired with an online copy of data. Regular ADSL users do not have, at the moment, enough upload bandwidth to be able to work completely online, especially in Europe.

B&F: Is a standard aspect of the cloud backup file-sharing and access to your files while travelling?

Gianluca Granero: That's what makes our vision much different from our competitors, which make an online version of traditional backup. Since you have done the "effort" of putting your files away why should you not take all the advantages? You have online storage and file sharing for "free".

B&F: Should the local disk-based backup in the home or small business also offer remote access?

Gianluca Granero: I would not suggest direct access to storage placed at home for the average user. Why  should a professional non-IT worker be aware of network configuration, public IP needs and security requirements? He just needs nice and quick solutions, not further problems.

B&F: How does MemoPal's service compare to that from Carbonite?

Gianluca Granero: Two are the most important differences from user's point of view:

- We do not delete any file without explicit user action. With Carbonite if you delete a file, after 30 days it will be gone from your backup.

- We give web access and ability to search in your archive.

B&F: Is the MemoPal service available through Internet Service Providers or PC/notebook computer suppliers?

Gianluca Granero: It will be available through a major Italian provider starting Jan 2009, and we are working with several European ADSL providers. Also during first 2009 quarter we'll ship Memopal in bundle with new PC and notebooks.

Commentary

This reminds me of ThinkingSAFE which also offers a local disk-based backup copy and a remote copy accessed online. Intuitively it feels absolutely right, combining the speed and convenience of local backup file copies with the safety and security of remote file backups that are accessible via the Internet, from anywhere to authorized users.

The Time Machine-like facility to recover any version of a file looks very useful too. A pairing with a NAS vendor looks to be a powerful way to extend MemoPal's channel and offer a combined local/remote file copy service to the NAS purchasers as an added value service. It should fly.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}