An updated version of the Jungle Disk 2.0 beta is now available for download. A number of fixes are included as well as some minor features. You can see all the changes in the release notes.

This version also includes the command line Linux client for the first time, which now supports the same automatic backup features as the GUI version. We’re still working on documentation for the XML configuration file, so for the time being we recommend creating your configurations using the GUI client.

As if we weren’t busy enough releasing the Jungle Disk Desktop 2.0 beta last week, we also moved into our swank new offices in Suwanee Georgia (about 25 minutes north of downtown Atlanta). There was a massive Ikea run for new furniture, followed by several hours of turning 2D packages into 3D furniture. We’re now fully up and running and have plenty of room for growth. The fun never stops around here though - next week we’ll be releasing another update for the Jungle Disk 2.0 beta and posting the first news about our beta plans for the upcoming Workgroup Edition as well.

We’ve gotten lots of great feedback and a few bug reports from users testing the first Jungle Disk 2.0 beta released last Friday. We’re happy to announce an updated version of the beta is now available that fixes a number of these issues and adds a few new features as well. We highly recommend all beta users update to this new release. You can download the new version from our beta downloads page, and see the full list of features and fixes in the release notes. Of note in the “new features” - we’ve added support for the official Amazon S3 fast file copy feature which is now in beta. This feature removes the need to use our own EC2 servers for copying and renaming files. Jungle Disk now uses this feature when upgrading buckets as well, which should make the bucket upgrade process faster and smoother. Finally, it also allows European S3 users to copy and rename files quickly rather than re-uploading as had previously been required.

There are several important bugs that were fixed in this release that we want to call attention to, in case current beta users have run into them:

• If you create a new Jungle Disk 2.0 bucket and enable High Security and Encrypted Filenames, but do not set a bucket password, then later go into the configuration and set a bucket password, your existing filenames may display incorrectly. This issue may not become apparent until you delete you directory cache.
• Similarly, if you create a new Jungle Disk 2.0 bucket, or upgrade a Jungle Disk 1.0 bucket and enable High Security and Encrypted Filenames with a bucket password, then later disable the bucket password, your existing filenames may display incorrectly. Setting a new bucket password again will correct the issue (as will upgrading to this beta release).
• If you upgrade a Jungle Disk 1.0 bucket with a custom encryption key but do not enable High Security on the Jungle Disk 2.0 bucket your previous custom encryption key may not be imported properly into the new bucket configuration. You can fix this by using the “Manage decryption keys for upgraded Jungle Disk 1.0 buckets” link in the Encryption settings (note: you must set a bucket password for this link to appear). In 1.99b these keys are imported correctly when upgrading a 1.0 bucket.
• If you open the Advanced Options in the Backup Selection dialog on Windows it may set your Backup Path for the current directory to an illegal value (ending in a backslash). The new version will correct this automatically, but if you backed up with the incorrect path you may see a directory name on your Jungle Disk with a backslash in the name. You can use the local web interface to delete the incorrect directory.

I’ve posted recently about both Microsoft and Google dipping their toes into the cloud services business. Yesterday, Rackspace announced CloudFS, a new cloud storage service from their cloud computing division Mosso. While Rackspace isn’t quite a household name like Google or Amazon, they have a great reputation for running reliable data centers and have 8 located around the US and Europe. Unlike the Microsoft and Google cloud offerings, CloudFS looks to be competing directly with Amazon S3 by offering unlimited storage with no minimum and no maximum. It’s not yet clear how competitive they will be price or feature-wise, but more competition will be great for the market in the long run.

How about you? Would you consider using a cloud storage provider other than Amazon? Is there a particular price level or some piece of functionality that might make you consider switching? Let us know in the comments.

Today we’re very pleased to announce the first beta release of the highly anticipated Jungle Disk 2.0. This beta, as well as the final release, are a free upgrade for all paid Jungle Disk users. The Jungle Disk 1.0 beta was released two years ago this week and Jungle Disk 2.0 is the biggest update since then. We have completely reworked both the internal engine and user interface for Jungle Disk. We now support multiple bucket types, there is an entirely new user interface including a brand new backup selection interface, and a whole host of new features including support for multiple buckets and backup jobs, support for European S3 data centers, and greatly improved performance in a number of areas. This release also lays the groundwork for our upcoming Workgroup and Reseller editions which were announced recently. More details on the beta test for those editions will be coming soon.

Many of you have been anxiously awaiting this release and I encourage you to check it out, however, please note that this is our first public beta of 2.0. We have done extensive internal testing, but it is likely that some issues won’t show up until tested under a wider range of systems and network conditions. We would caution against using this release for any buckets that contain data that you do not have a copy of elsewhere (e.g. on your local machine). While we have never had a major loss or corruption issue in a public release, it would be safer to wait for a later beta before testing on any irreplaceable data.

Before downloading the release, please read through the release notes completely. Of particular interest, you should read the section on upgrading your buckets to the new Jungle Disk 2.0 format (which is optional). The release notes also contain a list of the new features to look for. You may also want to take a review our new Online Manual and Knowledge Base (both of which are also in “beta” and incomplete).

When you’re ready to take the plunge you can download the Jungle Disk 2.0 beta and install over your current version (just exit Jungle Disk first). If you need to go back to 1.50c you can install it directly over 2.0. Note that the About dialog for this beta reports its version as “1.99a” - the first non-beta release will be 2.00a.

Please post any questions or issues with the beta to our special Jungle Disk 2.0 beta forum.

We’ve been posting quite a few product announcements on the blog recently. First Jungle Disk Desktop 2.0, then the Workgroup Edition, and now we’ve got one more before we lock the doors and put the finishing touches on Jungle Disk 2.0.  We get requests on a regular basis from businesses that want to offer managed online backup services to their customers using the Jungle Disk software and Amazon S3 service. We’re pleased to announce that we’ll soon be offering a Reseller Edition of Jungle Disk to help meet this need.

The Reseller Edition is based on the Workgroup Edition and has many of the same features including sub-accounts, access controls, and usage reporting. The main difference is that the client software will not be Jungle Disk or Amazon-branded. Our reseller partners will be free to sell the service to their customers under their own brand or bundled with other IT services. The Reseller Edition will be available as part of two programs. The White Label program will include a generic-branded client with no Jungle Disk or partner-specific branding in the software. This program will be completely turn-key and have a low startup cost. The second option is the Private Label program, which includes a custom build of the software with your branding and logos. The Private Label program is targeted at larger resellers who want full integration of their own brand in the software.

Using the Reseller Edition is simple and secure. The reseller partner provides a single Amazon S3 account that will be used to store all their customer’s data. The Jungle Disk technology provides a secure way to isolate customer’s data from each other and doesn’t require the S3 account credentials on customer machines. Our account management site allows the reseller to create and manage customer accounts and obtain daily reports on usage by customer or groups of customers.

Pricing for the Reseller Edition is simple - the reseller partner pays the base Amazon S3  usage fees ($0.15/gb) and a Jungle Disk license fee of $2/user/month, and they are then free to bill their customers however they choose - based on usage, flat rate, or integrated as part of a complete managed services package. We don’t mark up the Amazon pricing and we don’t restrict how partners bill their customers. Compared to other online backup reseller offerings that are $1.50/gb or more, we think companies will see a significant savings with Amazon S3 and Jungle Disk.

We’re starting an interest list from companies that are considering reselling Jungle Disk. If you want to be notified when more information is available and when we start beta testing for the program, please sign up here.

Amid all the activity here getting ready for the Jungle Disk 2.0 launch we’re still working hard on finding great people to join the team. Scott introduced himself a few weeks ago, and today I have the pleasure of introducing Adam Preble, our first full-time Mac developer. While all of our developers have some Mac experience, Adam is our first true Cocoa-coding, iPhone-carrying, Steve Jobs-lovin’ Mac guy. He’ll be working on functionality across all the platforms we support, but I expect you’ll see more attention paid to the Mac user experience now that Adam is on the team. Please join me in welcoming Adam, and if you think you might be interested in joining the team, please check out our remaining job openings.

In my last post, I outlined many of the great new things that you will see in Jungle Disk 2.0.  The product is making a huge leap forward in many areas and the Jungle Disk team is working very hard to get things wrapped up to begin the beta process.  Now that I have seen 2.0 in action, I am probably more excited than all of you to get my hands on it!

 Over the past several months, many of our customers communicated a clear need to leverage the powerful online backup and storage functionality of Jungle Disk across groups of users. As the needs of our customers grow, so does our desire to meet those needs through improvements and additions to the Jungle Disk product line.

Thus, it is with great pleasure that we officially announce the future release of the Jungle Disk Workgroup Edition.  This new addition to the product line shares all of the power and usability of Jungle Disk 2.0, while providing several additional features to make the administration of groups of users possible.  Here are just a few of the enhancements that you will see in the Jungle Disk Workgroup Edition:

• The ability to create ’sub-accounts’ to support multiple users with a single S3 account
• Customizable secure access control to multiple buckets, along with private and shared buckets
• User management, bucket management and usage reporting via a web-based admin console

Our plan is to offer the workgroup edition for $2 per user per month.  This fee would include the software, support, upgrades, and Jungle Disk Plus. I would like to emphasize that this is a per user license and not a per computer license.  Each licensed user can install the software on multiple computers (work, home, laptop, etc.) at no additional cost.  Pricing for the Amazon S3 service remains just $0.15 per GB.

To ensure that there is a clear distinction between products as we go forward, the existing Jungle Disk application will be referred to as the Jungle Disk Desktop Edition.

Without question, the Jungle Disk Workgroup Edition is a great step towards giving our business customers more control over their online backup and storage.  More information about signing up for the private beta and the planned release dates will be shared in the near future.

A few weeks ago I posted about Microsoft getting into the cloud computing space with their SQL Data Services service, and predicted that Google would soon join the game as well. As you may have already heard, yesterday Google announced their entry into the market for developer-oriented cloud services - Google App Engine. Neither Microsoft nor Google can currently match what Amazon currently offers, either in breadth or when it comes to bulk data storage with Amazon S3. Google currently limits applications to 500MB of storage and doesn’t provide APIs suitable for uploading or downloading large files, however in their Campfire presentation they had a slide with large file services at the top of their “What’s Next?” list so it’s only a matter of time (and price!).

While we’re still completely focused on building the best possible service on the Amazon S3 platform, it’s good to know that there will be more options “in the cloud” down the road. I think these announcements further validate Jungle Disk’s strategy of focusing on building great storage software rather than building datacenters and server farms.

Let me go ahead start things off by introducing myself. My name is Scott Gibson and I joined the Jungle Disk team a few weeks ago, taking on the role of VP of Operations. There certainly isn’t a shortage of things to do around here and I am incredibly excited to be working with Dave Wright and a great product like Jungle Disk.

As many of you know, the current version of Jungle Disk has done a superb job of meeting your online backup and storage needs, however, we have put forth a lot of effort to make the next version even more powerful and more intuitive. It is important to note that many of these new enhancements are a direct result of the valuable feedback that we have received from our customers, so on behalf of all of us here at Jungle Disk…thank you!

Along with the new product update, you can also expect a fresh new look for the JungleDisk.com website.

Ok, so enough beating around the bush…let’s get to what you really want to know in this post…What’s going on with Jungle Disk 2.0?

Here are just a few of the great things you can expect in Jungle Disk 2.0:

Jungle Disk 2.0 will:

• Include a new setup wizard for easy first-time setup
• Implement a completely new automatic backup file/directory selection interface
• Give you the option to connect to multiple buckets at the same time, even under different Amazon accounts
• Support the ability to create multiple backup jobs, each with their own schedule and backup options
• Extend the ‘bandwidth limiting’ features - limits apply to all network traffic, can be set on a schedule, and can be changed on the fly
• Allow for greater control over your ‘previous versions’ options - min and max numbers of previous versions, exclude selected file types and folders
• Provide new Jungle Disk bucket features - instant file and directory renames, encryption key changing, encrypted filenames
• Offer a new ‘backup preview’ dialog
• Enable support for buckets compatible with other S3 software and support for creating European S3 buckets
• Deliver significant performance improvements with large numbers of files
• ….and much more!

Super-Top Secret Screen Shots of Jungle Disk 2.0

• Setup Wizard Screen Shots
• Application Configuration Screen Shots