Implementing a cloud backed scalable note-taking application with encrypted offline storage and cross platform replication

Abstract

The act of taking notes is second nature to most people in the business and academic world where note-taking can play a variety of important roles such as aiding memory recall of events, idea capture, problem solving or visualization of complex systems and concepts through the use of diagrams or sketches. Whilst the traditional paper based form of note-taking is sufficient in most cases and actually superior in others to digital note-taking, the digital form does have some compelling advantages including the ability to search through notes, back them up, have ubiquitous access to them and augment them with captured digital media. Implementing these digital enhancements presents a challenge especially when combined with a requirement to provide a highly secure storage environment to protect confidential notes. In this paper we describe an architecture that provides these features whilst maintaining a high level of scalability and security through the use of cloud based services.