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Organizing Data Across a Heterogeneous Net?

Posted by Cliff on from the interoperability-is-good dept.

angst_ridden_hipster asks: "Like many people, I have a bunch of machines I use regularly. These include Linux machines, BSD machines, a Mac OS X machine, and a Windows machine. These machines are on a number of networks. All have internet connectivity. Some of them are always powered on. A few of them are not. Obviously, I have a bunch of accounts. And, it goes without saying, I have a bunch of data. What are the best approaches to sharing data? I want to be able to securely access my home data while at work, and from one machine to another, etc. Opening ssh terminals is the approach I have traditionally used, but I'm beginning to wonder if some mirroring software (e.g., Unison) might be in order. It'd provide the function of backups, as well as guaranteeing availability. Would it be wiser to tunnel nfs over ssh? Or is there some better option? Assuming I actually start mirroring data across multiple machines, I'll need to organize it in a portable taxonomy. This is almost easy, since I use cygwin on the Windows machines, so I can assume a standard Unix-ish directory structure. But this gets more complicated when there are scripts or other code involved. What about application/platform-specific data? How do other people organize their data, anyway? Are there any useful standards? I'm hoping people will describe their approaches, and why they think they're (not) the best."

2 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. Exchange Server by Tim+Ward · · Score: 1, Troll

    Put all the data on Exchange Server. Access it via VPN (unless or cable or ADSL supplier blocks incoming VPN, of course). If you need to access it from a box which doesn't have a suitable client use the web interface. You get moderately clever syncing with the message base on the lap top, which you can then use off line, and all the shared calendar stuff as well.

  2. Don't do it.... by neilb78 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Having all your data accessible from all of your workstations is highly overrated. I think you should just delete all of your data and quit your job.

    You hang-out on /. way too much.

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