Questioning the Security of the Cloud? Take Your Data Back!

You might not realize how frustrating the term “Cloud” can be for a server administrator. Marketing prevailed over reality years ago when communicating the concept of a “server” in a non-threatening way to users. As a result people understand less well than ever where their data actually is, and all the while server administrators are screaming in their heads “It’s just someone else’s computer!”.

Today, people who would be scared of owning and using a server, happily use half a dozen cloud services sometimes without even knowing it. For those who paid attention to the recent Apple vs. FBI confrontation, you all noticed that those who have data that should be private, don't know if, or how their data is being protected. Apple, Google, and others made it abundantly clear that your data is far easier to steal, hack or otherwise access if it is in the Cloud than if it is on a system you have in your possession that uses on board encryption.

The sad truth in all of this is that while the Cloud became a pervasive idea that masses of people happily accepted, OS X Server (a product that always seemed to miss it’s intended audience) quietly became the easy to use personal server only Apple could create, all while no one was paying attention.

If I were to tell you that for $19 you could have your own Cloud without any membership fees, or ongoing charges you’d probably not care, and that's a big part of the problem. I’ll just come out with it right now so you can get on with your life. You should download and install OS X Server. I know, I know. You are a business executive, you wouldn’t have the first idea of how to use it. Or maybe you are a doctor, or a lawyer. Perhaps you are a school teacher, or a desktop support technician. Fine then, let’s start from the understanding that maybe you don’t do this at work. Maybe you do it at home, because frankly you probably need your own server way more at home than you do at work anyway.

Assuming you install OS X Server at home, how do you proceed? Well, you could just go to the Mac App Store on your El Capitan ready Mac, install El Capitan if you haven’t already, and then buy OS X Server and install it as well. When you run it for the first time it will set the server up for you automatically. That’s it. Done! If you like having a guide to take you through the process, you could go to lynda.com and watch some entertaining videos with me about how to set it up, but if you are adventurous you could do it completely on your own.

For many types of services you don’t need to do anything but start the Server application up, then click the “On” button next to services you want. Which services can you start that easily? Well file sharing to start! Having a file sharing server at home means you can have one computer that is like a little personal cloud right there at home. It doesn’t go down when your internet connection goes bad. It doesn’t hog your bandwidth from the internet. It doesn’t cost you anything but a tiny bit of electricity to run. Amazing right? OK, there’s more though. If you really like the idea of making your internet connection better, you could click the “On” button for the Caching Server. The Caching Server is so easy to use at home you don’t even need to think about it. Just do it. Turn it on! It will automatically make sure you only have to download almost anything from Apple only once. This is amazing if you have more than one Apple device, like maybe an iPhone and an iPad, or a Mac and an iPhone.

Still not convinced, ok hang in there with me, I’ll give you an example. Let's say you are a creative artist who sees potential in creating websites for other people. Let's say you're trying to learn HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and a bunch of other great tools that will make you an amazing website developer. Wouldn't it be helpful if you had a web server on your own network that you could quickly and easily use to test all of your work, ideas, and your brilliant (or possibly not so brilliant) experiments that you wouldn't want to be public? OS X Server comes with an industrial-strength version of the Apache Web server that doesn't require you to know anything at all about server administration. That's right, I'm telling you that you can have your own development environment that is private, fast, secure, and yours forever sitting on any relatively recent model of Mac you have sitting next to you right now — for $19. The videos you need to watch to learn how to set this up will take you less than 20 minutes.

Here’s another example, let's say you are the parent of a couple of brilliant children. Let's say your children are perhaps a budding artist and a writer. You want to provide them with a safe and private environment to blog about their experiences, upload their art, and post their writing samples to share with Mom and Dad, or with each other, but not the rest of the world. With OS X Server and 10 minutes of time watching my course on lynda.com, you can have a private wiki and blog server with individual private accounts for each person in your family set up in no time. A wiki server is a great place to put all kinds of collaborative material, like maybe a family recipe wiki, or perhaps an information board to help the entire family collaborate in a space that is not data-mining everything you write and post.

As you can see, OS X Server is not just for the IT department, it's not just for managing labs of Macs, it is not just for testing mobile device management profiles. OS X Server is for Mom and Dad, it's for Teachers, it's for Kids, it's for Students, it's for Artists, and Web Developers — it really is for everyone. Download a copy and start figuring out how it can best serve you when you get home later today!