StackSync: A Dropbox-like Personal Cloud for OpenStack Swift
Channel: OpenInfra Foundation
Date: 2014-05-14

StackSync: A Dropbox-like Personal Cloud for OpenStack Swift features 
Cristian Cotes Gonzalez at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Pedro Garcia Lopez and Adrian Moreno Martinez. 

StackSync is a Dropbox-like open source synchronization tool that runs on top of OpenStack Swift. StackSync is specially designed to take care of organizations' real needs with features like scalability, openness, security and the typical ease of use offered by personal clouds.

The StackSync framework is compounded by three main components: a synchronization server, OpenStack Swift, and desktop & mobile clients. While synchronization servers are in charge of processing metadata and provide the logic, OpenStack Swift is focused on storing the raw chunked data. Users are able to keep their files synced by using the StackSync clients available for the main desktop and mobile operating systems. 
StackSync is based on an advanced synchronization technology, similar to Dropbox, with data optimizations (chunking, compression and push mechanisms) that allows it to scale to thousands of users with an efficient use of cloud resources. It also provides data-sharing mechanisms to groups of users.

A RESTful API has been built as a Swift module living at the proxies to allow the StackSync mobile apps and other third-party apps to interact with the available resources.

The separation between data and metadata allows StackSync to be deployed in different configurations depending on the needs. Using the private configuration, organizations can deploy it on-premise, as both OpenStack Swift and StackSync Server run on their facilities. The public configuration may be suitable for Cloud providers willing to offer a public synchronization service to their customers. Whereas the Hybrid configuration allows organizations to keep their metadata on-premise while storing the raw data at a public Cloud provider, retaining control over their information.

Finally, as an open-source project, StackSync welcomes and encourages any kind of collaboration from the community.