Software Implementation of an Online File Sharing System

1.1 Introduction

File sharing is a relatively new technology advancement which has been steadily taking over more and more market share in the past three years. The file sharing technique makes users share files among each other with ease, easy to setup, and open-source. File sharing is publicized as the next major step for all forms of typical information technology use. From businesses, to non-profit organizations, to single users, there seems to be various applications which can use file sharing or storage in daily computer usage, to offer a better, faster, and smarter way to share important document. Many file sharing systems are available between computers, such as Napster, Gnutella, and Freenet over the internet. Most of the internet traffic is due to file sharing systems. Napster uses a server to communicate between the users, and each user should contact the server in order to get the data. Gnutella, however, depends on the client/server approach where the peer sends a query to all peers in the network.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitation of the study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

File sharing has been a means of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, these information could be computer programs, multimedia files like (audio, images and video), documents, or digital books. The Phrase "cloud computing" is defined as a framework or sort of programming application. Cloud computing is on high request and saves a lot of cost in processing and adaptability, high-accessibility, and decreased data usage. Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a case of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) stage. It offers fundamental foundation segment, for example, CPUs, memory, and capacity. Google App Engine is a case of PaaS (Platform as a Service) stage. In Distributed computing stage Cloud server is a physical server. In light of IaaS and PaaS stages, a lot of time and money have been saved for start-up companies, such as foursquare and dropbox. Cloud computing is a technology that utilizes the web and central remote servers to keep up applications and data storage. One significant challenge is the manner by which to move these conventional applications to the cloud. This research focuses on the migration of specific flies of any size, from the local storage device to a cloud based system with more security, and can be easily accessed at any part of the world.

The cloud computing is developing quickly for it offers on-demand computing power and capacity. The power of cloud computing empowers dynamic adaptability of utilizations confronting different methods of file transfer in our advanced technology age. However, challenges emerge while considering the enormous amount of files to be shared. In this research, we propose moving of flies, from the traditional FTP service to the cloud. We execute FTP file transfer on Windows Azure Platform alongside the auto-scaling cloud feature. Furthermore, we implement a benchmark to study the performance of our Cloud sharing system. This research focuses on designing and implementing a file sharing system, the potential benefits and technical issues associated with sharing of files easily for easy retrieval.

1.3 Statement of Problem

Investigation revealed that the essential challenges faced with the conventional way of file sharing, management and storage techniques (such as manual filing or sharing of images, documents etc) is that users have little control over –or even knowledge the type of file being shared, if it contains a virus. Also, users do not or sometimes don’t remember the names of these files, the files contents, and their storage locations; this increases the risk of lost.

There may also be irregularities during file sharing, this could be lack of connectivity strength, device compatibility and other human factors. The Online File Sharing System will be an effective way to share files over the internet and give other usage access to view or manage the uploaded files easily at any part of the globe via the internet.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to design and implement an Online File Sharing System. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:

1. Enable users to easily host, store and backup data, with high-performance computing easy to retrieve.
2. Ensure files accessibility without any limiting factor, example device compatibilities.
3. Make file available to the end-user at any point in time. Cloud computing offers availability difficulties experienced in the conventional way of file sharing.

1.5 Significance of Study

This research work is designed to provide a means to transmit files (data / video) from one system to another system or a group of systems connected to a hub or connected via an Ethernet straight-through cable. It also provides a cost-effective, secured, safe, faster means to transfer files from one device to another device. It is also a secured and effective way of transferring the results of students in the department to the office of the dean. It is an improved means for proper administration of students in the department, to eradicate the issues associated with missing results in the department, and also saves cost because we would not have need to get a server.

This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.

1.6 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on designing and implementing an Online File Sharing System, which will represent as a platform for file sharing, information storage and dissemination.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).

1.8 Definition of Terms

Cloud computing: The practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer

Internet: an electronic communications network that connects computer networks and organizational computer facilities around the world.

File sharing: File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia, documents or electronic books.

FTP: The File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used for the transfer of computer files between a client and server on a computer network.

Cloud server: A cloud server is a virtual server (rather than a physical server) running in a cloud computing environment. It is built, hosted and delivered via a cloud computing platform via the internet, and can be accessed remotely.

Dropbox: Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud.