B4J Question Call for hints: B4X cloud backup

[udg]

Hi all,
recently on behalf of my brother I searched for a backup service storing data in the cloud following files encryption. I found a few of them, looking promising, good and cheap too, but since then I'm pondering about building one from scratch using B4X (obviously).

Any hint, comment and own experiences to share are welcomed.

Locally a B4J program will have to watchdog a few drives/folders for updated files, building a list.
Then at scheduled times (let's say night time) it should pick up each of those files, encrypt them, transmit over SSL to a server in a distant webfarm (I've signed for a cheap VPS) where they will be stored by a receiving B4J server program. The server program will be responsible to keep track of the origin of each file (drive/folder/file) and eventually manage access permissions for selected restore operations.

A plus could be to store multiple copies of the same file (kind of versioning), keep track of deletion of files (kind of time machine) so to be able to recover an accidentally deleted file after a few days, and whatever else may originate from this thread.

AFAIK, B4x already supports all the above. I'd like to hear from you about pros and cons. Even better if you had any previous real world experience with a similar project.

A few elements I surely will have to factor in are: efficiency, speed, Internet access quality, error management..

Should I drive my time and attention to something else leaving this kind of service to those good players already in this business or do you see a clear potential for it?

TIA

 

[AHilton]

"Should I drive my time and attention to something else leaving this kind of service to those good players already in this business or do you see a clear potential for it?"

There are lots of already very mature and capable (and free) options out there for this kind of thing. I'm one for building services myself in most cases but this is one of those that, with no very specific requirement to do so that can't be met otherwise, I'd happily leave it to others to provide. Now, as an exercise in trying it yourself or just playing around to see how to do it, then I think it'd be a fun project to do and I encourage it. But, surely, you have better things to do with your time?

 

[udg]

But, surely, you have better things to do with your time?

Absolutely. I'm talking about some spare time..ehehe

Seriously, I agree that it could be a nice exercise to test some techniques, components and libraries as well.
Once a skeleton would be up and running it would be interesting to compare its efficiency against that of the "real players" in the business.

 

[LucaMs]

Should I drive my time and attention to something else leaving this kind of service to those good players already in this business or do you see a clear potential for it?

If you can do something well done, upgrade your VPS and sell the local b4j "server" (it's a client) and an annual subscription

[Ensure you can get the permissions for the local folders and files, even in Linux and MacOS, and the way to manage them]