Jungle Disk Blog

Yesterday we announced the new Jungle Disk Server Edition. Today we want to show it to you. A free beta version of the Jungle Disk Server Edition is now available for download. The software will be free to use until at least 30 days past the final version’s release date giving you plenty of time to try it out and decide if it works for you (and hopefully give us some feedback in the process). Note that normal cloud storage fees still apply.

To get started, please read the Release Notes, which includes information about the Server Edition as well as installation instructions. We don’t have a full manual available but the software should be familiar to existing Jungle Disk users.

You will need a license key for each server you plan to install the software on. You can get a license key from this link. If you need multiple keys, just use the link again. License keys are visible on the Jungle Disk Subscriptions & Purchases page. You may be asked to provide payment information, which will be used for your cloud storage fees.

Once you’ve signed up for a license key, you can download the software. We’ve got 32 and 64-bit versions for Windows, and on Linux we have packages for the most popular distributions as well as our standard tar package.

Note that there are two parts to the software. The Server Edition Software runs on your server machine, while the Server Edition Management Client runs on your desktop and is used to manage your servers. You will need to download both parts, depending on which operating system your server and desktop run. Any platform of the management client can be used to manage the Server Edition.

Please post questions, comments, or support requests to the Server Edition Beta Forum. You may want to review the existing posts if you have trouble in case it’s an issue that another user has encountered already.

We’re pleased to announce a new addition to the Jungle Disk family – Jungle Disk Server Edition. While Jungle Disk was originally designed for desktop usage, a few intrepid users started using it for server backups as well. However the Desktop Edition’s limitations, including a local management GUI, a 5GB max file size, and a single upload connection make it ill suited for serious server backups. We received strong feedback from users who’d like to see a more robust server backup solution, so we decided to develop a new product to help make server backups amazingly fast, easy, and inexpensive.

The Jungle Disk Server Edition builds on the core online storage technology of Jungle Disk with an entirely new Backup Engine designed from the ground up for handling large, complex backup jobs. The Server Edition is also designed to be managed completely remotely once installed, allowing administrators to easily manage multiple servers from their desktop. Storage efficiency is critical for large server backups, so the Server Edition includes block-level data de-duplication within and across multiple files and versions of files as well as compression for all data. To give you an idea of how much savings this can provide, for our internal database backups we keep 60 days of backups, a total of 210GB of data. With the Jungle Disk Server Edition this has been cut to only 21GB, a savings of 90%! Our nightly backup time went from 30 minutes to just 6.

A full list of the features for the first release of the Server Edition is below:

• Provides automatic, online backup for Windows and Linux servers
• Full remote management GUI for Windows, Mac, and Linux clients
• An entirely new, highly efficient backup engine designed for server backups
• Block-level de-duplication across an entire server’s backup set, including previous versions
• Compression for all backup data
• No maximum file or backup set size
• Optimized backup for large directories and small files
• Block-level incremental backups means that data already backed up is never transferred again
• Support for multiple backup jobs with their own schedule, file set, and retention policy
• Full support for backing up and restoring extended filesystem information:
  • Windows and Linux security attributes and ACLs
  • Junction points, symlinks, hardlinks, and device nodes
  • Alternate data streams, xattrs, and directory metadata
• Multiple simultaneous uploads, for high bandwidth server connections
• Robust AES-256 encryption with a user-controlled key
• Backup status and error reporting via desktop management client, web, e-mail, and RSS
• Supports multiple cloud providers – Amazon S3 and Rackspace Cloud Files

We’re in the final stages of internal testing for the Server Edition right now and a free public beta will be available tomorrow. We haven’t finalized the pricing for the final release yet, but we expect it to be around $5 per machine per month. As with the desktop versions of Jungle Disk, we’re not marking up the cloud storage price at all – only $0.15 per GB, a huge savings compared to other server oriented online backup services, and an even better value when you consider the amazing space savings the new backup engine provides.

Finally, I know many of you have been waiting for more news on Jungle Disk 3.0, and we’ll have more information on that release later this week. One tidbit to share – many of the improved backup features we built for the Server Edition will be making their way into the Desktop and Workgroup Editions as well. Keep an eye on our blog for more information on the 3.0 release soon!

We’ve temporarily removed the beta plugin of Jungle Disk for Windows Home Server from the Jungle Disk site. We’re in the process of developing an entirely new backup product for Windows Home Server and other NAS devices and we hope to have a beta available in the near future. In order to reduce confusion when the new product comes out we’ve decided to go ahead and take down the WHS-only beta at this time.

Note that this does NOT affect existing users of the Jungle Disk WHS plugin in any way. You can continue using it as-is for as long as you’d like. If your WHS happens to fail and you need to re-install the plugin to restore your files, please contact our support team and they’ll be happy to provide the download.

In an effort to improve the Jungle Disk customer support experience we will be moving to a new ticketing based system, powered by Zendesk.

With the number of users we now support it can be difficult to keep track of individual issues in a forum setting. This new system will allow the Jungle Disk team to better serve our customers and ensure any questions or issues get resolved quickly and efficiently.  We have also begun to integrate our knowledgebase into the portal to provide a single location for both of these support resources.

It is our intention keep the customer forums in place for the foreseeable future to allow our customers to continue to interact with each other as a mechanism for sharing things like tips and best practices.

Going forward the Jungle Disk team will continue to monitor the customer forums, however all customer support requests should now be directed to the new support system at http://support.jungledisk.com.

We’ve got some exciting news to share with you today. Jungle Disk has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Rackspace Hosting, Inc., the world leader in managed hosting. This transaction will ensure that Jungle Disk can continue to innovate and grow even in challenging economic times that are resulting in downsizing at other startups. We expect that the additional resources available to us by working through Rackspace, along with their commitment to Fanatical Support®, will help us accelerate development, improve quality, and reach a larger audience than would otherwise be possible.

We know that many of you may have questions about what this means for the future of Jungle Disk, so we’ve put together an FAQ to help address these concerns. Several of the questions are below, and you can see all the questions and answers on our FAQ page. Feel free to add any other questions in the comments and we will do our best to answer them.

• How does this affect new and existing customers?  There will be no changes for new and existing customers. The software and service will continue working and be supported just as it is now, by the same team that has developed it from day one.
• Who is Rackspace?  Rackspace is the world’s leader in managed hosting. They operate 8 datacenters in the US, Europe, and Asia. Founded in 1998, they have a consistent record of profitability and are a public company traded on the NYSE. In a market that is highly competitive, their commitment to great customer service (they even trademarked it: Fanatical Support®) has established Rackspace as the gold standard in hosting. Rackspace is also a strong believer and early leader in Cloud Computing.
• How will Jungle Disk customers benefit from this acquisition?  The primary benefit for our customers will be our ability to expand with additional resources available for both development and support. Rackspace is a company that has built its entire business around the promise of Fanatical Support and we will adopt the same approach with Jungle Disk. The Rackspace acquisition will also help ensure the long-term availability and stability of the Jungle Disk software, something that is very difficult for any startup to do alone in the current economic environment.

See this page for the full Rackspace announcement FAQ.

You can read the official Rackspace press release here. In addition to the Jungle Disk acquisition, Rackspace announced a number of other new cloud computing developments at a live event in Austin today. You can watch a replay of today’s event (including a cameo by yours truly, Jungle Dave) at the Rackspace Cloud Event website.

In response to our Jungle Disk 2.50 post, we’ve received a number of questions as to how this affects the Windows Home Server version of the software which is still officially in beta, and when an update might be expected. The good news is that the 2.50 release will lay the groundwork for our next major iteration of home server backup. The Windows Home Server version of Jungle Disk was originally a bit of an experiment, to help understand the demand and needs of the Home Server / Home NAS backup market. One of the most important things we’ve learned over the last year is that the Windows Home Server platform alone isn’t really large enough to justify a stand-alone product, but there is a large amount of interest in online backup from users with other brands of home NAS devices from Linksys, Netgear, Qnap, Drobo, and others.

Moving forward, we are focusing on a strategy that allows us to support a wide range of these devices in addition to Windows Home Server.  The separation of the backup service from the GUI in the 2.50 release will be one key step in allowing us to do this. Porting the software to these other devices will also take some time, but we expect it will be made easier by the fact that we already support Linux and non-Intel (PPC) platforms. In the end, we plan to provide a unified online backup solution for the entire home server and NAS market.

Do you have a home NAS device you’d like to backup directly with Jungle Disk? If so, leave a comment with the brand and model.

We’ve released a minor update for Jungle Disk for Windows Home Server that fixes the issues uncovered so far by beta testers. We recommend all users of the Jungle Disk for WHS beta release update to the new version. To update, simply uninstall the previous version, then download and install the new version. The changes in this version are listed below:

• Changes to avoid an issue with disappearing configuration
• Added button to clear the errors & warnings list
• Fixed text wrapping issue in errors list
• Fixed error message when backing up empty share

Update: We were able to track down a few more issues and decided to include those fixes as well, so 1.02b is now available.  The additional fixes include:

• Occasional empty (blue) console tab for Online Backup
• List of shared folders not updated in settings when adding/removing shares

We’re proud to announce the release of the first beta of Jungle Disk for Windows Home Server. Jungle Disk for Windows Home Server is a completely new edition of Jungle Disk, optimized for the Windows Home Server platform. It allows you to back up your most important files stored on Windows Home Server to multiple Amazon.com datacenters around the country using Amazon S3.

Since being announced as one of the winners of the Windows Home Server Code2Fame contest, we’ve gotten many requests from early Home Server adopters for access to the software. Today we’re releasing a free public beta version to allow users to try it out and provide us with feedback. You can see more details about Jungle Disk for Windows Home Server, and download the beta release on the Jungle Disk site. We’ve also opened a new section on our forums for beta testers to obtain support and request features.

Jungle Disk for Windows Home Server, which we announced a few weeks ago, was selected as the second place winner of the Microsoft Code2Fame challenge. I entered an early beta version of the software in the contest and was delighted to have it selected as a winner. I’m very excited about the Windows Home Server platform – it provides the first really robust home file sharing and backup platform for non-technical users, and it’s extensibility means that you’ll be seeing more interesting uses for it in the future. Combined with Jungle Disk for off-site backup of your most critical files it’s a can’t-miss solution. Rob Enderle, who was one of the Code2Fame judges, recently wrote about using Windows Home Server and Jungle Disk for offsite backup in light of the losses suffered in the California fires.

You can expect to see a public beta of Jungle Disk for Windows Home Server in the near future as the first Home Server systems start to hit the market.

We recently created a customized version of Jungle Disk for the new Windows Home Server platform coming out this fall. We’re planning on offering the Windows Home Server version of the software later this year when the first home server devices start shipping. For more information on the Windows Home Server edition of Jungle Disk see our new Windows Home Server FAQ page.

Don’t worry – this hasn’t distracted us from development on the core desktop version of Jungle Disk. In fact, a new desktop release will be coming soon with several highly requested features that were built along side the Windows Home Server version and will be available for all platforms – including multi-version backup and integrated restore for easily restoring large amounts of data. More information about the next release will be announced shortly.