System and Method for Managing User Data in a Plurality of Storage Appliances Over a Wide Area Network for Collaboration, Protection, Publication, or Sharing

A method of transmitting data to a storage appliance over a wide area network, the method comprising:

• on receipt at the server of the identity of the receiving user, providing via the server, to a host computer of a sender, a computer program that (1) provides a mechanism for selection, by the sender, of a file to be sent and, (2) upon the sender's command, causes the file to be transmitted directly over the wide area network from the host computer of the sender to a storage appliance of the receiving user on a peer-to-peer basis, without storage of the file at the server,
• wherein the storage appliance is running a process that communicates with processes established by the computer program.

A method of transmitting data over a wide area network from a storage appliance of a sending user, the method comprising:

• on receipt at a server of a link established by the sending user by commanding a sending program running on a host computer of the sending user to send a file selected by the sending user to a recipient, providing via the server to a host computer of the recipient, a receiving computer program downloadable via the URL that communicates with the sending user's storage appliance in causing the file to be transmitted directly from the storage appliance of the sending user to the host computer of the recipient on a peer-to-peer basis without storage of the file at the server.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions, for a storage application, that, when executed on a computer coupled to a storage appliance, establish a storage client computer, the storage client computer having a user interface process enabling a user to select, for each particular one of a number of containers stored on the storage appliance, whether the particular container is accessed remotely via the storage appliance or cached locally by the storage client computer,

• wherein the storage appliance synchronizes contents of the particular container with contents of a corresponding container stored by at least one other storage appliance on a peer-to-peer basis in a manner consistent with relationship data from a central service, wherein the central service does not store the contents.