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We have similar needs, only we're exchanging files across dodgy Internet connections (e.g., satellite links to sites in the developing world). Our requirements including operation over low-bandwidth connections and the ability to suspend and resume transfers. We settled on Windows Live Sync, since it works on Mac OS X in addition to Windows, and because it required no additional software development effort on our part. Had Live Sync not been available, we would have developed our own wrapper around BITS. Because BITS is an extension to HTTP, it degrades gracefully into something interoperable with non-Windows clients. (BITS would also work over a private network, but that wasn't a feature we required.)

Even easier: https://www.foldershare.com/

Foldershare actually turned into Windows Live Sync, but it still works great on Windows and OS X. It keeps my desktop and both my laptops constantly updated with the latest versions of documents, and I never have to touch it or think about it. (Unless there's a sync conflict, which happens extremely rarely.)

You want to start experiencing what a real Mesh feels like, install foldershare. You can use any application to work with your data rather then be tied to one application (like google docs). It's been killer for keeping everything between my work, home and laptop machines up to date and also sharing full quality photos to my extended family. Once we all add in the ability for web applications to access and stay in sync with my data and we will be cooking with fire.

FolderShare (link) could be what you're looking for. When any changes are detected between the shared folder on different machines, they're synced. And the data's not stored remotely.

I use FolderShare for this, and have been happy with it. https://www.foldershare.com/

I've been using Foldershare for several months now to synchronize several folders on three different machines. It has worked well so far and it is free. It's available at: https://www.foldershare.com/

The problem with offline folders is that they only work well for one user on that laptop, especially if it's the home share that's being offlined here.

But let's get back on topic. If it's not a really a chronological backup that's needed, then maybe https://www.foldershare.com/ could be a possible solution to the problem.

It synchronizes user-specifyable folders amongst multiple machines in a real-time fashion, so this might work well if those roadwarriors also have a desktop in the office they could synchronize to. Foldershare is also free as in beer.

Another solution could be http://www.logmein.com/ which is not free, but has many useful modules, backup being one of them. They also offer really good remote access solutions, which might be a selling point for some of the IT managers.

Groove is definitely NOT a distributed filesystem, even if some might consider it as having those capabilities. For that purpose, I personally use http://www.foldershare.com/ just to keep large volumes of files in sync between my personal and family systems, including across firewalls.

Let me try to boil it down a bit further to illustrate. Groove is client software, much like an email client, that allows groups of people to share tools (not just files, but also calendars, discussion threads, meeting organizers, etc.) and keep them all synchronized. It works asynchronously, and automatically syncs and resolves conflicts when users return online. It works across firewalls, effectively setting up a peer-based relationship between users, utilizing only port 80 for all of its communications (although it has an IANA registered port 2492 that, if open, will vastly improve performance because it can use a highly optimized protocol - SSTP Simply Symmetric Transport Protocol - between users.)

Yes, it's Windows only. Sorry. :(

One nice feature is the ability to share a any folder on your computer with 1 or more people outside of your firewall and keep everything synchronized in the folder. Keep in mind that the focus is on team work, so it's not really tuned for sharing 100GB of video or tunes!

But for keeping a project on track, sharing documents and spreadsheets, discussion threads, etc. "in context" with the project has been a key selling point. The comparison is either doing an entire project in a team portal, which you can do - but you can also drive a car with your feet. :) Or send around countless emails with attachments, always generating the aforementioned questions "did you send it, where is it, which version are you on?" The nice thing is that my Dad can use it, because the only requirement to setting it up is to put in an email address and user name. All key generation, credentials, authentication, etc. is set up internally so users don't have to mess with it. It just "works" out of the box.

Folks - I'm not looking for an alternative. It works and it works damn well for what it does. The only thing I'm saying is that I haven't found anything that performs the core functionality. For that, you'd have to get a group of talented programmers together and invest multiple years, $150Million, and 5 million lines of code. Or you could take the simpler route and use a client/server architecture, or do specific pieces of it, like file-sharing.

Here's what you'd have to build:

1. Distributed directory system that allows people to authenticate each other out of band or via corporate server

2. WAN P2P protocols

3. LAN P2P protocols

4. Local encrypted database

5. Communications encryption

6. Robust synchronization algorithms, including offline support

7. Presence/awareness (no only does it tell you someone is online, but it will show what workspace and tool they are working in)

8. Messaging (IM)

9. RBAC (Role Based Access Control)

10. Integrated forms development for custom applications

11. About 20 tools that sit on the preceeding architecture and assume all of the capabilities therein

12. Another 30 items I'm sure you don't want to read!

Groove just does so many things, so seamlessly and completely integrated, that it effectively replaces some OS functions as well as applications. And IT need only bless it - they don't have to do anything to manage it - it's self-managing!

Well, now I'm getting into other aspects and this thread is getting way too long. I only wanted to get some more information out there in case there are some enterprising OSS developers out there who want to bring the same capabilities to Linux. By the way - Groove did show a Linux version back in 2002, but there was not enough business incentive to continue development.

Hope this information helps.

I want to help you troubleshoot this. Windows networking *can* work reliably, I swear.

* Sometimes network browsing can be fragile if you don't have a domain controller, even though the computers *can* actually talk to each other. Have you tried manually typing the computer's name (or IP address) into Explorer's address bar? ie: "\\WorkstationB\" or "\\10.0.0.2" (or whatever the IP address is, double-check by running "ipconfig" at the command line).

* If that still doesn't work, I'd suggest a minor rebuild. Run Windows Update and make sure you have ALL the latest patches (if you have pirate copies of Windows that don't have service pack 2 installed - this could be the cause of the problem). Reinstall the network drivers, re-do the entire network configuration (don't forget firewalls) to make sure there's not a single lone setting somewhere that's messing things up for you.

If you're still out of luck, there are two alternatives - at least for file transfers:

* The simplest would be FolderShare - which is private file sharing that works over a LAN or the internet. Although you have to open a port for best performance when running over the internet, it is intelligent enough to figure out when two machines are on the same subnet and does direct transfers over the LAN instead. You set up a shared folder, and anything you drop in there is automagically replicated on the other computers. I have three computers using Foldershare (my XP machine at home, my XP machine at work, and my Mac notebook which roams) - and it works brilliantly.

* You can also try going the Unix route, with Windows Services For Unix. In short: try NFS. I have a FreeBSD server at home which I connect to from my XP desktop using NFS - and it works fine. I'm assuming that if you installed NFS server software that it would also work well when used Windows to Windows.

Best of luck getting this figured out - I know it's a pain sometimes...

We use it to share Pics and Vids and Music. You just have everyone create a folder on their drive, then give each account permissions. They drop stuff in the folder and eveyone gets a copy via P2P. It's a bit of a pain to setup initally, but a snap to use once it's running.

I took a look at iFolder some time ago, mainly through my interest in mono. Anyone out there who has used iFolder and FolderShare care to post a quick comparison?

Foldershare

It works on Mac and Windows. My understanding is that it sets up an automatic encrypted peer-to-peer mirror of folders between machines you designate. So for me, I have it mirror folders on my personal laptop, my work desktop, and my brother's desktop (which is the automated-internet-equivalent of what someone said in an earlier post, "mail a DVD-R to my mom"). If anything crashes, we've got two more copies of it.

Only drawback, doesn't work for Linux yet; likely never will work since they were recently acquired by Microsoft. But there's probably a way to Samba-serve a work-around for that...

You may find FolderShare of some use. It's an ad-hoc peer-to-peer directory synchronisation application.

You set up one (or more) directories on at least two machines, tell it to keep those directories in sync - and magic happens. There's a central internet server that your machines connect read and store only the file checksums. And if more than one computer is online (either on the same LAN - or anywhere on the internet), files will be copied and the directories syncronised. It's a brilliant idea.

I personally have several FolderShare shares, including a large folder off my home directory that I keep organised and know that it will be automatically replicated to my other machines for distributed backup. *And* it works well for my MP3 directory and my digital photos.

It used to be a pay service, but Microsoft bought it and immediately opened the service for free to everyone. I believe their primary intent is for it to be a part of Windows Live when Windows Vista launches. FYI, there are Windows and Mac clients.

There are other similar programs, for example Foldershare.com, which was just bought by Microsoft a few months ago, which stands out from other P2P programs in that you can "autosync" a folder across multiple computers, so you download a mp3 on one computer and it's copied over to other computers automatically.

free...
http://www.foldershare.com/
no file limit- other than your bandwidth.

make a folder, share it with a family member- keep all your family photos on both machines.

warning, initial can be a BITCH if you have a lotta files.. do it a chunk at a time.

Yes, yes, they charge for features like filediff support, but the free version still works pretty well.

Foldershare
We use foldershare for peer-to-peer backup, but the catch is that you invite people that you trust to your libraries.

For backup purposes, I only invite myself and just connect another computer to the account.

Foldershare is a Win32 "Document Management & Real-time File Mirroring Solution".

I read that "the development team hopes to start work on Mac OS X and Linux clients within the next six months" (Jan 27th 2004).