Private file sharing solution that helps your organization stay in control of your business data to meet compliance controls and security standards. Because online file sharing does not mean you have to upload files to a third-party website. Instead, you can leverage your local IT infrastructure for a private, self-hosted file sharing solution that's online for your employees and user groups.
Do you need to adhere to compliance regulations? Are there specific requirements that affect where data is stored?
Do you trust the user's device and want to pre-authenticate them before they can even connect to your file sharing site?
Do you have specific data lifecycle management requirements, such as legal-hold, FINRA or HIPAA requirements?
A service provider for schools in a canton of Switzerland is part of the government for education in that region. Their schools have varying numbers of users, from 80 to several thousand. They have on-premises file servers. The data on the local file servers can be accessed by the teachers and the administration of the school. The users require a secure solution to store their files. They also have some data protection requirements. They are using SharePoint and OneDrive for schools. But they get some legal issues because of privacy. They want to be compliant with Swiss regulations. Because of the legal requirements in Switzerland, the schools cannot use a solution that is not connected to WAN. There is an encryption problem. They can not upload the files to SharePoint because they do not want the encryption key for their documents to be stored with a third party. They would like to have a private, self-hosted cloud storage solution for schools. No third party should have access to the documents, only them.
Most public file sharing solutions require you to upload files to their hosting sites before you can share them with your business partners and colleagues. So who owns your data, and how do you control access to and changes in your data? Do you lose control of your data if it's located somewhere on a third-party hosting site in another country? Or, as in the story above, are you concerned about the encryption key being stored with a third party while the data is outside your country?
A self-hosted private file sharing solution brings the cloud experience to your on-premises file servers, providing data ownership, data privacy, and permission control. When cloud mobility cooperates with traditional mapped drive and file locking, you have found a private cloud file server you have been looking for. It retains the security and privacy strength of the file server and empowers it with cloud productivity features like mobile access, secure sharing, data protection, and cloud migration.
How do you enforce policies for data access, data encryption, and change auditing with your current file sharing solution? How are you meeting regulatory requirements and being HIPAA or GDPR compliant? Does the file sharing solution provide sufficient data retention policies to be FINRA compliant?
Using your file servers and existing Active Directory infrastructure to set up the file-sharing solution guarantees that the corporation retains ownership of the data on the existing IT infrastructure.
Self-Hosting the file-sharing solution makes it easy to set up data protection, data retention, and audit policies for various regulatory compliances. And better yet, your file server as the data repository makes it easy to extend the existing auditing workflow.
Using existing file servers as data repository extends the current data privacy model. In addition to using VPN to access corporate file servers, HTTPS-based access method and web-link sharing are great additions to file server functionality.
Data administration and user management are easy since your file server serves as the self-hosted file sharing solution's data repository. You can keep using the present identity providers for data access and the current lifecycle management policies for your file server.
Active Directory infrastructure continues to govern the file sharing access. Active Directory federation or SAML single sign-on can continue to authenticate users, and NTFS permissions can continue to protect file access.
Unlike consumer file sharing solutions, business users have these standard requirements:
Business users are used to accessing files from centralized file server network shares. A file sharing solution that extends current file server capabilities to include HTTPS access and web-link sharing keeps users' daily workflow running smoothly.
Businesses use Active Directory, SAML single sign-on for user authentication. And use various other Active Directory-centric permission control methods to protect files and folders. A file sharing solution must integrate well with Active Directory.
Remote workers are accustomed to accessing centralized file servers from remote locations via a drive mapping at work and over a VPN. A file sharing solution that represents files and folders within a drive letter makes it much easier for employees without additional training.
The consumer data working sets are typically small. By comparison, business data working set on corporate file servers are usually very large. It is unusual for a lightweight laptop to store 100% of the corporate file server content, which is not secure to begin with. On-Demand sync and access save storage space on remote devices.
File locking is another feature of traditional file servers that business users are accustomed to when multiple users are collaborating on the same set of files. File locking means that when a user starts editing a particular file, the solution automatically locks the file until the user finishes editing and closes the file. This is another familiar feature for users.
Unlike consumer file sharing solutions, the corporate needs to manage all endpoints that can access corporate data. Whether it's endpoint access policies or endpoint backup of the devices, a business-oriented file sharing solution needs to consider endpoint management requirements.
Why choose Gladinet? Why not OwnCloud?
With the Gladinet solution, the file-sharing solution is interoperable with existing file server network shares. It comes with Active Directory integration, cloud drive mapping, global file locking, and the NTFS permission control integrations. All of these native integrations make the file-sharing solution more like an extension of the current file server rather than another data silo that takes away data.
Mapped drive over HTTPS channel to the corporate file server is a crucial feature. Employees are familiar with a mapped drive, and no additional training is required.
Corporate users already have corporate identities in Active Directory and related Active Directory federation service and SAML single-sign-on. They don't need yet another set of credentials to access a file-sharing solution.
Most of the file-sharing solutions offer manual file locking in the forms of "file check-in" and "check out." Gladinet provides automatic file locking by detecting file opening requests. When Microsoft Word opens a file, file locking process is automatically initiated and automatically terminated when editing of the file is complete.
Finally, the ability to integrate with Active Directory and NTFS permissions makes it so much easier for system administrators to set up the permission control. The permission features make the Gladinet solution stands out among the peers.
The network shares you are familiar with from the file server will become team folders directly accessible from Cloud.
You will get a drive letter in Windows Explorer to access the files from the cloud.
You will get file locking when working with files from the cloud.
Active Directory integration is simple, whether it's a local or remote file server.
Maintain compliance and control by keeping track of all management tasks and activities.
Data protection comes with military-grade encryption, secure connections, and more. Automatically use existing users and permissions to save setup time and money.
Bring the cloud experience to your file server by providing Secure Mobile Access to file servers without cloud replication. Leverage existing NTFS permissions and Active Directory identities. Improve data control with features such as file versioning, auditing, reporting, and policy-based collaboration.
Become a Cloud Service Provider by providing your users a Dropbox alternative that lets you maintain control over their data while reducing costs by 50-80%. At the same time, move file servers to your data center and provide a business continuity solution for your companies.