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- | #Windows Cloud Sync Usage Notes | ||
- | last edited: June 26, 2023 | ||
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- | ## | ||
- | These notes are a deep dive into the functionality of Access Anywhere' | ||
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- | ##What Cloud Sync Is | ||
- | Cloud Sync is a program included with Windows Desktop Tools. | ||
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- | ###Use on a Server | ||
- | Cloud Sync is a desktop tool. It is not designed for use on servers, and NAA will only support its use on servers by special arrangement. | ||
- | ##What Cloud Sync Does | ||
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- | Cloud Sync ensures that pairs of directories - one local and one in a storage cloud - have either identical contents or similar contents depending on the configuration being used. | ||
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- | ##When to Use Cloud Sync | ||
- | Cloud Sync is applicable to a variety of use cases. | ||
- | - User works locally on a Windows desktop and wants to ensure that the her files are also stored in the cloud. | ||
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- | - User works in the cloud and wants to ensure that his/her files are also available on a Windows laptop. | ||
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- | - User works both locally and in the cloud and wants to have the same data in both places. | ||
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- | - User sometimes works offline and wants to ensure that her data is copied to the cloud when connected to the internet. | ||
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- | - Two or more users are collaborating and want to have recent copies of each others' | ||
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- | - User wants to bulk upload data from the desktop to the cloud. | ||
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- | ##Sync Pairs | ||
- | As already mentioned Cloud Sync operates on pairs of directories, | ||
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- | The sync pair approach is very different from the approach taken by a popular storage provider' | ||
- | ###Source and Destination Directories | ||
- | Cloud Sync works in both directions. Depending on how the sync pair is configured, the local directory can be the source directory for the sync, the destination directory for the sync or both. The same is true for the cloud directory. | ||
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- | <WRAP center round important 100%> | ||
- | You should never create sync pairs that overlap. | ||
- | </ | ||
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- | ##Two Methods of Executing Syncs | ||
- | Cloud Sync executes syncs in two ways: _interactive sync_ and _automatic sync_. With interactive syncs, Cloud Sync synchronises the contents of the two directories in a sync pair when the user initiates a sync command. | ||
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- | During an automatic sync, Cloud Sync synchronises the contents of the two directories in each sync pair according to how each pair is configured. | ||
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- | Cloud Sync provides an additional sync’ing option | ||
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- | In addition to the difference in how syncs are launched, there is another important difference between interactive syncs and automatic syncs: When launching an interactive sync, the user can exclude selected files and folders inside the folders that make up the sync pair from the sync process. When syncs are being launched automatically, | ||
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- | When the Cloud Sync application is open the program is can be used to launch syncs interactively, | ||
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- | ### | ||
- | When performing a //Sync Up//, //Sync Down// or //Sync All// if Cloud Sync encounters files of the same name in the source directory and the destination directory Cloud Sync will **not** overwrite the newer file with the older file. | ||
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- | For example, assume that a sync pair has been configured for a //sync up//, and that the file //a.txt// exists in both the local directory and the cloud directory. | ||
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- | ##Modes of Synchronisation | ||
- | All of the options described in this section apply to both interactive and automatic modes of synchronisation. | ||
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- | Conceptually synchronisation between two directories consists of ensuring that they have the same contents. There are, however, several choices to be made when sync' | ||
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- | {{ :: | ||
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- | - **Sync All** - Ensure that the local directory and the remote directory have all of the same files and folders. | ||
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- | - **Sync Down** - Treat the cloud directory as the master, and ensure that the local directory has all of the same files and folders as the cloud directory. If a file appears in both directories and the cloud file is newer, the local file is overwritten with the cloud file. If the local directory contains files or folders that the cloud directory does not have, they will be preserved in the local directory. | ||
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- | - **Sync Up** - Treat the local directory as the master, and ensure that the cloud directory has all of the same files and folders as the local directory. | ||
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- | - **Clone Down** - Treat the cloud directory as the master and ensure that the local directory has all of the same files and folders as the cloud directory. | ||
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- | - **Clone Up** - Treat the local directory as the master and ensure that the cloud directory has all of the same files and folders as the local directory. | ||
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- | ###Sync Deletion Options | ||
- | When the contents of two directories are being sync’d and the destination directory contains a file that is not in the source directory, the action taken can be controlled with Cloud Sync’s Sync Deletions options: | ||
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- | - Down - This option is only available for Sync Downs and Sync Alls. When this option in checked for a Sync Down, if a file in the local directory does not exist in the cloud directory but did exist in the cloud directory at the time of the most recent previous sync execution, then the file will be deleted from the local directory. | ||
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- | A Sync Down with the Down deletion option enabled is similar to a Clone Down. The difference is that the Clone Down will delete a local file that is not in the cloud directory regardless of whether or when the file was deleted from the cloud directory. | ||
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- | - Up - This option is only available for Sync Ups and Sync Alls. When this option in checked for a Sync Up, if a file in the cloud directory does not exist in the local directory but did exist in the local directory at the time of the most recent previous sync execution, then the file will be deleted from the cloud directory. | ||
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- | A Sync Up with the Up deletion option enabled is similar to a Clone Up. The difference is that the Clone Up will delete a cloud file that is not in the local directory regardless of whether or when the file was deleted from the local directory. | ||
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- | ###Sync Versioning Options | ||
- | The NAA provides a file versioning feature which, if activated, retains older versions of a file when a new version is saved. | ||
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- | - Down - This option is only available for Sync Downs and Sync Alls. If it is enabled then version files in the cloud directory will be copied to the local directory. | ||
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- | - Up - This option is only available for Sync Ups and Sync Alls. If it is enabled then, when sync uploads a new copy of a file that already exists in the cloud, the new copy will overwrite the old copy without a version file being made whether or not NAA versioning is active. | ||
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- | ##Automatic Sync Scheduling | ||
- | Each sync pair can have a sync schedule associated with it. If a sync pair has a sync schedule then the pair will be sync’d automatically when Cloud Sync unless automatic syncs have been suppressed (the Cloud Sync application is open). | ||
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- | The sync schedule choices are: None, Often, Hourly, Daily and Weekly. | ||
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- | ## | ||
- | ###Sync Encryption | ||
- | When the Encrypt and/or Decrypt options are enabled and an encryption password (phrase) has been provided, Cloud Sync will respectively encrypt files using the provide phrase when syncing up, and will decrypt files using the provided phrase when syncing down. It is the user’s responsibility to retain and manage any encryption phrases used by this feature. | ||
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- | ###Sync Logging | ||
- | When this option is enabled, Cloud Sync will log the outcome of each attempt to sync a file. NAA strongly recommends that sync logging be enabled. | ||
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- | ###Other Sync Options - All Sync Pairs | ||
- | The following two settings apply to all sync. pairs: | ||
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- | ####Do Cloud Meta Sync before Desktop Sync | ||
- | The Access Anywhere maintains a cache of metadata describing the files on the underlying cloud storage. | ||
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- | Cloud Sync relies on the metadata in the cache to tell it what files are on the cloud storage. | ||
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- | ####Retry failed syncs, up to X times | ||
- | For a variety of reasons an attempt to sync a file may fail while Cloud Sync is syncing a sync pair. Cloud Sync’s strategy in this case is to re-sync the entire sync pair. This setting controls how many times Cloud Sync will retry syncing the pair in the event of failure. | ||
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- | ###Other Sync Option - Only Sync Pairs With Up Syncs | ||
- | ####Use SyncUp Option | ||
- | The Use SyncUp option applies only to sync pairs that are configured for syncing up from the local directory to the cloud directory (Sync All, Sync Up and Clone Up). When the Use SyncUp option has been selected, Cloud Sync continually syncs up from the local directory to the cloud directory - whenever a change is made to the local directory that would be sync’d up during the next sync execution, Cloud Sync syncs that change immediately to the cloud directory. | ||
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- | If the Use SyncUp feature is in use, we recommend that every sync pair have a scheduled sync. | ||
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- | The Use SyncUp option cannot be activated while the CloudSync program is open. | ||
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- | ##The Cloud SyncUp Monitor | ||
- | The Cloud SyncUp Monitor is a program for monitoring and controlling syncs performed by the Use SyncUp option. | ||
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- | When the Cloud SyncUp Monitor program is running, monitoring (detecting files that are ready for upload) by the SyncUp option can be turned on or off with controls in that program. If it is turned off then the SyncUp option will not detect new or changed files that are ready to upload and those files will not appear in the Cloud SyncUp Monitor window. | ||
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- | When the Cloud SyncUp Monitor program is running, uploading files that were determined by the SyncUp option to be ready for upload can be turned on or off with controls in the Cloud SyncUp Monitor program. If it is turned off then the files will be listed in the Cloud SyncUp Monitor window in a ' | ||
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- | When an attempted upload of a file that is listed in the CloudSync Monitor program' | ||
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- | Turning off the SyncUp option while the Cloud SyncUp Monitor program is running will cause the Cloud SyncUp Monitor program to close. | ||
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- | <WRAP center round important 100%> | ||
- | If Cloud SyncUp Monitor is in use, NAA recommends that a scheduled sync be configured for each sync pair that syncs up from the local folder to the cloud folder. | ||
- | </ | ||
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- | ## Sync Conflict Detection | ||
- | Sync conflicts are detected based on //last modified times// | ||
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- | ## Syncs Not Running | ||
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- | The scheduled syncs will not run while the Cloud Sync Window is open. | ||
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- | The Windows Task Scheduler can help diagnose the reason a cloud sync may fail to startup. You may need to increase the logging level. | ||
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- | {{: | ||