Frustrated Groove User has Questions about Collanos

[2mc]

My company has been on Groove for 2 years and we are frustrated to the point of looking for other platforms and solutions.  Hence my entry on to the forum.

I have a few questions, if you don't mind:
1) Can Collanos work in conjunction with Hamachi to simulate the performance of a local area network?

2) In Groove I have a Files Tool that holds all of my files within my workspace.  We have several workspaces in which we want to force revision control by the setting of permissions.  What we want is for a manager to make revisions to a file and then a worker is forced to make of copy of the file (revision control) before making any changes.  A manager then makes changes to this new file.  The worker then has to make a new copy, and so on.  This cannot be done in Groove - which is our major frustration at the moment.  Is this possible within Collanos?

Let me be clear: it is possible within Groove to set the permissions that I want for one file, but any new file will not have those persmissions.  And, if you have thousands of files in your workspace and you want "revision control" permissions there is no way to globally set them.  This is, again, a major problem for us.

3) Is there anyone familiar with Groove that can give me some comparisons?

4) Also, how well does Collanos work with Mac?  We are so frustrated with Microsoft at the moment, that we are considering moving to Mac. 

5) Who mans the relays?  Are they public?  How reliable are they?  The reason I ask is because we have had problems with the Groove relays.  Will there be private relays available and at what cost?

Thanks.

Matt

[Franco Dal Molin]

Hi Matt

1) We did not (yet) try to run Collanos on Hamachi. It would be quite interesting to see if it works at all, and if yes, to compare performance. As Collanos uses relaying in NAT'ed LANs, more direct NAT-traversal schemes could possibly result in better performance. Again, all speculation, not yet tried.

2) No, we don't have such a function either. We have implemented a "Conflict Resolution Bin" (per user), where object conflicts (i.e. overwrites and deletes by others) to his/her content are stored. From there, the user can restore the object, rename it, and save to a new location. In the future, we might develop and roll out a more flexible "tree-like versioning system", but certainly not anytime soon.

3) I am somewhat familiar with Groove, although not with the latest 2007 version. One key difference is Groove is organized around Tools ("a tab, a tool"). We don't like the idea of fragmentation by tool-type. Our spaces can be structured with virtual folders. And folders can contain any object type, such as File, Discussion, Task, Note, etc. Of course, we are multi-platform. Anything in particular that you need to know?

4) We work basically equally well on Win, OSX and Linux. At least we try hard to achieve that. Our strategy is to maintain full compatibility and congruency with all platform releases.

5) Our relaying concept is different. What we call relay is really only a temporal traffic re-routing service to traverse firewalls and NATs, not to coordinate or cache replication. Currently, all our syncing is purely P2P. We will introduce "Hosted Permanent Peers" early next year. They will be part of a premium offering for individuals. This will be an (optional) subscription service. I am planning to blog about our roadmap soon.

In general, we try to stay away from traditional Enterprise IT approaches (such as server deployments within company firewall, LDAP and other integrations, centrally managed clients, etc. ). We target small and medium companies and professional networked individuals (as well as the edge or larger companies), but do this in pure grass-roots driven and Internet-based way. We don't have a sales force and won't offer integration or consulting services. Our business model is more Skype-like: Free basic offering, and premium subscription services "in the cloud". BTW, that's another key differentiator with Groove.

Hope I was able to answer some of your questions.

[2mc]

We are 13 users - soon to be 14.  So, we're a small business.

I have a couple of questions regarding your reply, if you don't mind.  I appreciate how you endeavored to answer my questions.

1. If we had a computer that ran 24 hours a day and had each workspace of our users, would that serve as a sort of relay server?  That is, suppose one of our users saves all of his work.  I'm assuming that all changes are propogated to all workspaces on those computers that are actually on.  Then suppose this user flies to another town to do some consulting work and while on the plane another user makes some changes to the files in his workspace and saves the changes.  These changes are propogated to all computers that are on (one of which is the 24 hour on 'server').  Further suppose, this user arrives at his destination late at night.  He goes to his hotel room to do some work.  All other users in the company have their computers off (except for the 'server').  Can he log on to the internet at the hotel and have the changes propogated to his workspace from the 'server'?

2. You wrote: "We have implemented a "Conflict Resolution Bin" (per user), where object conflicts (i.e. overwrites and deletes by others) to his/her content are stored."  Do you mean by this that if anyone comes into my space and deletes files, the deleted files will be stored in the Conflict Resolution Bin and until I, as owner or manager of the workspace, approve of the deletions, they will remain and be able to be restored if I want?  If so, that is a great feature.  So, if I'm understanding correctly, only the person who owns the workspace can actually delete a file.  He cannot go into other workspaces he is invited to and delete files there without them first going into the Conflict Resolution Bin.  Have I understood correctly?

I, too, don't like the fragmentation of the Groove Tools.  So, I like the concept you have.

I look forward to your answers.

Matt

[Nikolay Todorov]

Hi Matt,

I will try to explain a little bit about your question on 2)

Consider you are a member of a workspace(not necessarily the owner). A "conflict" for you is the case if anyone modifies (not only deletes) an object that was last updated (or only created) by you. Everyone in the workspace with manager permission level can do such a modification but the "original" object will immediately go into your Conflict Bin. From there you can select either to delete it on your side too or to restore it as a NEW objects in the workspace.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Niki

[Franco Dal Molin]

Matt, I will answer 1. and add a detail to 2.

1. The answer is: Very soon! As of today, we still have one major limitation, which is "the *originator* of any new content or changes to content, must be online". This is a huge limitation. Your scenario would NOT yet work today. In a few weeks time, we plan to release Workplace version 1.2, which will include a "fetch from any" replication. Your scenario will then be supported! Please note that we are taking fetching from any *normal Workplace peer*, which means that your so called "server peer" is a regular Workplace and would need to have its own "user" identity as well as a "Collanos Name" (and will also be listed in the central user directory). Yes, it can be done as a workaround, but it is NOT the intended use. Finally, it will be the forthcoming "Permanent Peer" that will address your requirement fully. We plan to be release it early next year. It will be an on-demand hosted service that can be added to your existing workspaces, by essentially "Permanent Peer-enable" them. You and your teams will benefit from faster and guaranteed replication. Even further down the road is multiple-device support using only one identity.

2. Niki is right. One small detail: Yes, you need "Manager" permissions to delete objects, but every "Participant" can modify objects.

[2mc]

Guys, thanks for all the replies.  I appreciate your interest in helping me.

I have a couple of clarification questions:

1) Can we set up permissions so that a participant can only do two things: a) create new files and b) modify his own files?  This would force revision control.  A manager reviews the spreadsheet a worker has created and makes some changes and saves the file (the file is now saved with manager's name as 'modified by'). He then gives the worker some instructions to carry out regarding the spreadsheet.  The worker cannot make changes to the file nor delete.  The only option is to make a copy of the file and rename it.  Now, the worker makes necessary changes to the file, saves it, and notifies the manager to review.  And, the process starts over again.  This way versioning is forced.

2) Regarding the question above, can these permissions be set so that all new files in this workspace inherit these permissions?  This is the major flaw of Groove.  In its Files Tool individual files and folders may have their permissions set as described above, but not globally.  New files will always have the Groove default permissions.  It's the only Tool that acts like that.

3) If I am able to set the permissions as stated in number 2, can the permissions be set for other objects?  I see that instead of having separate tools as Groove does, you enable users to place various file types into one folder.  If I want versioning as mentioned above for the file object, but I don't want it for the task object or the discussion object, am I able to separate the permissions?

4) Suppose this scenario: I have a file that I have created in my workspace.  I have invited one other person to my workspace.  He makes a change to my file.  My original is placed in the Conflict Bin, correct?  His name is now on the file, i.e. 'modified by' has his name.  Now, I make a change to this file with his name on it.  What happens?  Is the version with his name on it placed in the Conflict Bin or not?

5) Related to the above question: What if I make a dozen saved changes to a file no one has ever revised?  Will any of the versions be saved to the Conflict Bin?  Or, is it the case that only when someone else changes a file it is put into the Conflict Bin?

6) Does each instance of a workspace have it's own Conflict Bin?  So, in the scenario of question 4 above, will his change to my file cause my original file to be placed in my Conflict Bin and will my change to his version of my file cause his changed file to be placed in HIS Conflict Bin?  Or, is there only 1 Conflict Bin that both users have equal access to?

I know I'm being a pain in the butt with these questions, but I want to get it right.  Our two years of experience with collaboration software (Groove) has alternately thrilled us and frustrated us.  I would love to get to the place where I don't have to think about the collaboration software at all and I only spend my time actually collaborating.  What a great day that will be.

Thanks for all the time and energy expended to answer my questions. I really appreciate it.

[csummers]

Is the  "fetch from any" replication (referenced above) ready for release yet?  My company, which has hundreds of Groove users, is looking at Collanos but needs the server peer capability. 

/Clint

[Peter Helfenstein]

Hello, you can expect fetch from any capability very soon !!!
Regards
Peter