While traditional VPNs require dedicated phone lines and dedicated IT staff to collect user profiles of remote peering partners and to install, configure, and manage VPN hardware, Mango was able to set Gilder Publishing up with our very own VPN and remote Internet storage cache with a single e-mail. Each member contributing files and folders to the drive can regulate access of other drive members to them. Multiple users can simultaneously and securely access and edit Mind drive files. Use requires no training, no additional hardware, and no IT intervention. The Mind drive does all of the thinking, arbitrating file reads and writes.
All applications operate directly on files without creating multiple incoherent copies.
Files saved to the Mango drive are encrypted at the end user prior to transmission over the Internet to Mango s centralized network cache. By contrast, a traditional VPN scheme decrypts files at the destination storage server. In the Mango system, all decryption takes place at the client on the edge. Hollowing out the computer by combining the storage and memory of multiple users, Mangomind uses a distributed shared memory architecture originated for massively parallel supercomputers at the late lamented Kendall Square Research. Under the guidance of KSR co-founder Steve Frank, that company developed systems to share memory among many microprocessors within its proprietary supercomputer.