STORXS

We all know the popularity of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), a user driven movement within the corporate world. Did you know that, as a professional organization, it is not all you can bring? Certainly, if you are looking to contemporize the IT environment in your organization and meeting your end users’ needs.

The more recent movement towards “user-centric” IT management is however creating massive headaches to many IT professionals. But now also the IT department can “bring their own”, and we’re not talking about consumer devices.

What can you bring as an enterprise organization?

1.     Bring your own enterprise storage (BYOES): Why would you hire or buy new storage, if your own storage is sufficient and performing well, although you might want to add some intelligent features such as enterprise file sharing? Why not use what you have already?

2.     Bring your own enterprise firewall (BYOEFW): You’ve invested a lot of time and money into creating a secure and controllable firewall. Why would you waste that and buy or hire someone else’s? Why not use what you have already?

3.     Bring your own enterprise home directory (BYOEHD): Why would you want to change the root of your company data? Why would you want to migrate your data with the risk of losing (some of) it or spending massive amounts of money in doing so? Why not use what you have already?

4.     Bring your own enterprise security policies (BYOESP): Why would you want to change the way your employees are working now? Your company policies regarding safe data use do not have to change, just add on non intrusive solutions that empower your workforce to work mobile and securely. Why not use what you have already?

5.     Bring your own enterprise Active Directory (BYOEAD): We all know it is difficult enough to keep your active directory up to date. Why bother setting up another “rights structure” just to address one specific solution? Make it your policy only to adopt technologies that can fully integrate with your existing AD. Why not use what you have already?

There is no doubt that BYO consumer grade solutions are detrimental to any organization. Keeping control over your corporate infrastructure and data remains one of the biggest challenges for IT Management.

Remember that video starring John Cleese about the Institute of BackUp Trauma. Luckily you have overcome those kind of “easy” mistakes withinyour company. Looking back, which is always easier, it is actually unacceptable that these incidents could even occur. That would not be happening in our current decade.

Wrong.

That is happening now and not only to other companies. It’s happening everywhere. So what are the most common don’ts?

1.     Not knowing where your company data is stored makes you vulnerable. Uploading your data in just any cloud, whether you do it privately or as a company diminishes the control you have over your most important asset. Make sure you know where your data is located.

2.     Dependency on a single soft or hardware vendor is killing your business. Not only are you in big trouble if a vendor discontinues the product or even worse, the business. You are also “locked in”, preventing you from changing your IT strategies, thus losing business agility.

3.     Blocking anything will bring you nothing. By blocking sites or apps to your employees, you only make them more creative in finding ways to do what they want. The better solution is to offer them a secure enterprise grade alternative for the apps they prefer to use.

4.     Emailing confidential files is like broadcasting them on television. Even though you might have a very secure network, you have no control over how your email travels after it leaves your premises. It might be opened on a phone that gets lost or it might be forwarded to the wrong person. It is just not secure enough.

5.     Consumer grade file sharing services put your data at risk. If your employees are sharing your data through free consumer grade file sharing services, they put your data at serious risk. Those services are always linked to individual accounts, which you have absolutely no control over. If the employee disappears, so does your data. If it didn’t already.

6.     Enforce company devices. Obviously it is most convenient to enforce the use of company provided devices. At least, for your organization that is. Not for your users. With enforced (mobile) devices your IT department keeps control, but your users will find a way to work the way they do in their private life and use their own. Better to enable BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and give them an appropriate enterprise grade solution to do so safely.

7.     Easy data migrations do not exist. Don’t get fooled by someone telling you that migrating your data to the cloud is a piece of cake. It is not. And getting your data back may prove to be a real nightmare. Actually, moving data is very intrusive and not to mention expensive. Why not leave your data where it is and share it securely from there?

Why StorXS?

So you take your data, and thus Enterprise File Share & Sync (EFSS) seriously. So do we. We consider you company data your most valued asset. You do not want to lose your grip on those. We can help you (re)gain your grip. Our software solution actually leverages your existing investments in your infrastructure while empowering your mobile employees (BYOD), though keeping your data safely behind your firewall.

This document explains in brief how StorXS benefits your organization by offering a secure and enterprise grade file sync and share solution. In the cloud - or on premise.

Network mapped drives – you know the ones I’m talking about: your personal H: drive, or the corporate G: drive, maybe you even have a departmental I: drive. Personally, I haven’t used our network share in years, and I doubt that any of our staff have, either. It’s just not…convenient. I mean, the guys are always on the road, engaging with customers across their region or even the world – we’re almost never on the LAN anymore. (By the way, is it just me, or does LAN just sound so 90′s?)

Anywhere - Anytime

Two years ago, StorXS released it’s first File Sync and Share solution, which has since evolved into their second generation Enterprise File Server. We love the fact that we can store files in group or private folder and access them from anywhere. I could be sitting in a hotel room in Vancouver and working on my files sitting on my StorXS server back in Amsterdam, Holland. Neat! When StorXS released their Enterprise File Sync and Share solution last month, well…I can now sync the files I needed to work on to my local drive or the other way around, so I can keep working on them 36,000 feet in the air! When I get to the hotel and connected to the Internet, the StorXS will just sync them back up to the server. What more could I want? It was pure Happiness!

These past two months, I have been working on the StorXS Beta release, installing and testing its functionality and all the different clients and Apps. There are two reasons I love being part of Beta cycles: 1) I get to learn the software so that I’m ready when it comes out, and 2) it’s fun to see the development and progress being made on a piece of enterprise-class software.

As of this writing, we are currently running in production; the developers have been doing some amazing work, and I am very impressed by the progress.

So…what exactly is StorXS?

Well, in a nutshell, it provides an enterprise level “DropBox” experience for your users, except that the files are stored on your internal network. No clouds. Although “clouds” are all the hot trend, right now, it is stunning how many organizations don’t want their users storing stuff in those puffs of vapor.

Now, if that’s ALL it did, it would already be great for a lot of people we’ve been showing this to. However, StorXS also has the capability of exposing any directory on your existing network file systems so that users can access them from anywhere without migration!

Our internal network

Let me give you an example: on our internal network, we have a NetApp NAS with a volume named “Data” (I know: “how creative”!). This volume dates from way back to pre-StorXS days, and still contains a certain measure of files and directories. DATA:/Data/Vendors/NetApp is one of those. We used to store product PDFs, manuals and all sorts of other files in there.

Well, this past week I was playing around with StorXS, and I realized that, “Hey! Now I can use those folders again, ’cause StorXS gives me access to them from anywhere!” Despite having and heavily using StorXS, there are always files that don’t seem to fit into a given mold, and I always wonder where to put them. I started cleaning up the folder – the most recent files in there were dated from 2008, which gives you an idea of long it’s been since we’ve used these folders! I updated a bunch of documents, uploaded some new material, and voila! A usable file repository again!

Now I can access these files from anywhere – and from any device, including my iPad and my Android phone.

And of course, StorXS client allows me to sync any given network folder down to my local drive so I can keep working on them offline:

The same folder synched to my local drive!

Easy, secure and convenient!

The Box has done their IPO!  All of us in the file sharing market (and beyond) anxiously waited for this day to happen.  Box and Aaron Levie stipulate the possibilities of Silicon Valley. The Box has worked hard in the last decade to build a successful cloud file sharing and collaboration business and we at Storgrid would like to sincerely congratulate them on this great achievement. 

A successful Box IPO validates what we have been saying for years: the way we work is changing. It has changed for good.   

Today’s mobile workforce demands the ability to access and share their work on any device, anytime, anywhere as easily as they access and share their personal lives on Facebook and Instagram. And, organizations that do not step up to this challenge are going to be left behind as employees, especially new employees to the workforce, demand new ways to collaborate. 

The new workforce

Having said that, we also looked forward to this day because we think it starts a new chapter of the conversation. A chapter where we focus on the needs of the new workforce, and start to make some sense of the very real differences between the leaders in this market.  In our case, we couldn’t agree more with Box that this is a huge opportunity for change in enterprise IT.

At the same time, we have a very different approach. We believe that enterprises need choice on how and where files are stored.  Our clients tell us consistently that some or all of their content still needs to reside in their own data center for security and compliance reasons. That's why Storgrid has invested in a hybrid EFSS solution that gives our customers complete control of where files reside without any impact on end user functionality. 

Our customers want secure access

Our customers tell us that they want to to make much of their file-based accessible via an EFSS solution. They know this will make it easier for users to securely access that content from any device, and also drive down IT support and infrastructure costs while improving information governance. Our customers have asked for a solution that provides secure access to this content without requiring any immediate and disruptive migration. And we have done that with Storgrid.