Risk Management

Bye-bye file server, hello cloud! Part 2: Enterprise File Sharing

In part 1 of on my blog, I discussed how times have changed and we need to rethink file servers with a new use-case from customers who are migrating their infrastructure into the cloud. Today, we go further and explore the ideal solution for Enterprise File Sharing.

The ideal solution for Enterprise File Sharing—what people expect!

From a CFO’s perspective To reduce IT-costs from public cloud storage such as Google, AWS, or Azure but if it would put a heavy load on my network then it should be able to host that data in our data center or somewhere nearby.

Such a hybrid environment where you can mix public cloud and on-premise should be policy-based so end-users don’t need to worry where they put their data but the system will place it accordingly.

If I could reduce my email server storage cost by moving email attachments from in the Exchange Server in the platform, that could be a strong compelling event.

Like an on-premise mail server where costs are the (expensive) mail server storage cost, but also backups and archival, even in an O365 – where the architecture is now operated by Microsoft, storage will have to be paid by you.

So, every attachment that we DON’T store in Office 365 saves us money as long as I can store it somewhere else that is cheaper.

From a security perspective

Unlike the failed attempts by those enthusiastic who rolled-out a consumer-grade solution like Dropbox in their department causing IT to lose control over security, security must be flexible to accommodate different roles in the organization to meet their requirements, but always with security best practices in mind.

The CiSO usually already had a hard time moving assets to a public cloud, it is for many CiSO’s the reason why they are awake at night: “Have we got the correct security policies in place to protect our content and keep control over the information we share internally with external partners/suppliers/customers?”

Flexibility comes in the form of Security Policies which will give a lot of freedom to users and give them a good “Dropbox” experience, but at the same time assures the InfoSec team about the controls in-place.

From an end-user perspective

In an ideal world, content should be accessible by any application and any device. It should behave like a big network share or a big USB-disk.

Content should be streamed in a quick way to your computer – similar to what a network-drive would do. Preferably users want this behavior in any place at any time.

One good thing about the COVID pandemic is that many users have changed their working location and avoid hours of commute.

These people who are now introduced to the “work-from-home” culture do not every time want to connect through a VPN.

Especially when traveling between meetings or on your way to work, you want to have access to your files instantly. A change that you make in an off-network meeting should sync up immediately to the server or your other colleagues as soon as there is “some” network – similar to a Dropbox.

End-users like the “Dropbox” experience that they enjoy when sharing personal files with the local hobby club or the high school basket team. This behavior is what end-users expect today from enterprise solutions: Being able to work with files on any device.

For end-users, the ideal solution gives the benefits of a consumer-grade Dropbox, but with the additional experience of a network drive because that is when people are used to.

If they can access this VPN-less “network-drive-like” solution also offline or in a cached way and share files with the internal and external team members, — cherry on the cake.

You guessed it: The fileserver of the future is called Syncplicity

You might know Syncplicity as a file sync & share solution – the Dropbox for the enterprise as we often referred at. Security is our second name.

Reduce your file server costs, thanks to the consolidation of fileservers or transition them completely to the cloud will reduce storage costs.

Do the calculation: what If I reduce your Storage Costs by 30-70%, how much money do you save?

Give users their modern experience: access to shared folders and team folders from a PC, a mobile device – with or without a VPN. This allows them to share the information as simply as Dropbox, but as secure as a fortress.

Reduce your IT-Service Desk cost because now users can do self-service IT and the protection against Ransomware is added into the solution as well.

Learn more about Syncplicity and its solutions.