How to use Amazon S3 Server Side Encryption with CloudBerry S3 Explorer

As always we are adding features to make it easier for our customers to use the functionality to offer the most compelling Amazon S3 , CloudFront and IAM client on Windows platform.

Amazon has recently added a feature that helps encrypt the object on the server side.  Amazon S3 Server Side Encryption (SSE) provides you with the ability to encrypt data stored at rest in Amazon S3. With Amazon S3 SSE, you can encrypt data on upload simply by adding an additional request header when writing the object to Amazon S3. Decryption happens automatically when data is retrieved.

Newer version of CloudBerry Explorer 3.0 comes with a full support for Amazon S3 Server Side Encryption. You can encrypt existing objects on the server by selecting the objects and choosing an appropriate item in the context menu.  Using this option you can encrypt one objects, multiple objects or a whole bucket.

You can turn Server Side Encryption as a global option in the tools options and SSE will apply to all objects copied to Amazon S3. Note, you can still use CloudBerry Explorer client side encryption.

You can also select Server Side Encryption for the upload rule to apply for specific buckets and/or specific objects under specific conditions. Note, Upload Rules is a PRO only feature. Learn more about Upload Rules here.

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Note: this post applies to CloudBerry Explorer 3.0 and later.

As always we would be happy to hear your feedback and you are welcome to post a comment.

CloudBerry S3 Explorer is a Windows freeware product that helps managing Amazon S3 storage and CloudFront . You can download it at http://www.cloudberrylab.com/free  

CloudBerry S3 Explorer PRO is a Windows program that helps managing Amazon S3 storage and CloudFront . You can download it at http://www.cloudberrylab.com/pro  It is priced at $39.99  

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CloudBerry Online Backup: Introducing Block Level Backup for all files

CloudBerry Online Backup is a powerful Windows program that automates backup and restore processes to Amazon S3 , Windows Azure, Google and other cloud storages. Cloudberry Backup is perfect for small and mid-sized businesses looking for simple and reliable online backup solution.  

As always we are adding features to make it easier for our customers to use the functionality and the Block Level Backup has always been one of the sought after features. With the CloudBerry Backup release 2.3 we have added the functionality that would back up only the modified blocks of the files to the cloud storage making the overall backup process faster and more efficient.  This feature had one serious limitation -you could only take advantage of it for files larger than 5GB.

With the new release v2.4 we are introducing Block Level Backup option for the files of any size. Moreover this feature comes with the ability to do encryption, compression and versioning which was also a limitation of the previous release.

Block Level Backup is useful if you want to backup large files such as SQL Server Backup files, MS Exchange Database, Outlook PST files and virtual machine images.

To use Block Level Backup for all size of files you should choose the Advanced Mode in the Backup Wizard. Also, check Use block level backup checkbox. 

Results

Our tests show that when copying a VMware virtual machine images of ~2GB, the changed portion is only  10MB. it takes only 2.5 minutes to upload the delta.


Here is a copy of our backup status report:

Backup plan Advanced Diff VMWare Backup (WEB) run on 09/15/2011 05:00:02 COMPLETED

Product version:	2.4.0.31
Computer:	CBL-MAIN-HOST
Bucket:	<outbucketishere>
Duration:	00:02:29
Files scanned:	45
Data scanned:	20.72 GBytes
Files to backup:	1
Total file size:	1.85 GBytes
Data to backup (differential):	10.25 MBytes
Files copied:	1
Data copied:	10.25 MBytes

Note: as block level backup is a part of advanced mode you can't restore the files using other cloud storage clients and you have to stick to CloudBerry Tools. Once Amazon S3 team removes the 5GB limit from the API you will be able to take full advantage of block level backup in Simple Mode too

What's next

Special note to MBS customers. we are going to add block level backup functionality to the service this week.

As always we would be happy to hear your feedback and you are welcome to post a comment.

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Note: this post applies to CloudBerry Backup 2.4.1 and later.

CloudBerry Backup is a Windows program that leverages Amazon S3 storage. You can download it at http://backup.cloudberrylab.com/ . It comes with onetime fee of $29.99 (US) per copy.

CloudBerry Backup for WHS is a Windows Home Server add-in that leverages Amazon S3 storage. You can download it at http://whs.cloudberrylab.com/ . It comes with onetime fee of $29.99 (US) per copy.

CloudBerry Backup Server Edition.  is a Windows program designed to run in server environment that leverages Amazon S3 storage. You can download it at http://server.cloudberrylab.com/ . It comes with onetime fee of $69.99 (US) per copy.

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Want to get CloudBerry Backup for FREE? Make a blog post about us!