NFC Vault : File Server and Object Storage Support

Do you want to increase remote worker productivity by providing access to file servers? Have you moved your data to object storage services like Amazon S3? Do you want to provide web and mobile access to your file servers and object storage?

Where is your data?

To increase the productivity of field workers, many organizations have migrated their file servers to cloud storage services such as SharePoint, OneDrive, Box and ShareFile. Organizations that have not been able to migrate their file servers to the above cloud services either keep the data on the existing file servers or move their data to object storage services such as Amazon S3 or Windows Azure Bob.

For organizations that keep their data on existing file servers, there are three main reasons why they continue to use the existing file servers. The first reason is compliance and security, because it's easier to pass compliance tests and control security boundaries on file servers. The second reason is big data, because with big data it's not easy to migrate to the cloud. The third reason is legacy applications, because these applications are tied to existing file servers. There are also organizations that are migrating their file servers to Amazon S3 and Windows Azure Blob Storage. The reason for migrating to Amazon S3 is the longevity and availability, as well as the ease of backup and setting up lifecycle management for data

Choice #1 - Local File Server Network Shares

If you have data on your file server that can be accessed by remote workers, the data is usually in the form of an SMB network share or a DFS share, and the identity system is usually the Active Directory domain. In this case, the NFC Vault server can first join the Active Directory domain and then connect to the SMB or DFS shares. Now that the Active Directory and SMB shares are connected, remote workers can log in using an HTTPS web protocol and also upload and download files to the local file server share using HTTPS RESTful protocols

Chice #2 - Object Storage Services

Object stores have the advantage of being highly available and durable, making them a very good choice for data storage. For example, if your data is mainly media with Adobe Creative Suite applications, storing the data on Amazon S3 is a very good choice. With the NFC Vault server, the Amazon S3 object storage service can be mounted on the NFC Vault server and published to remote workers. The identity system typically comes from a single sign-on solution such as Azure AD. In this way, remote workers can first log in to the enterprise identity system and then access the Amazon S3 or other object storage service as if it were a traditional file server.

NFC Vault Solution

Mapped Drive

A mapped drive over the HTTPS channel to the corporate file server is an important feature. Employees are familiar with a mapped drive and no additional training is required.

File Locking

Most file sharing solutions provide manual file locking in the form of "check in" and "check out". NFC Vault provides automatic file locking by detecting requests to open files. When Microsoft Word opens a file, file locking is automatically initiated and automatically terminated when file processing is complete.

Active Directory

Enterprise users already have enterprise identities in Active Directory and the associated Active Directory federated service and SAML single sign-on. They do not need additional credentials to access a file sharing solution.

File Permissions

Finally, integration with Active Directory and NTFS permissions makes it easier for system administrators to set up permission control. The permissions features set Gladinet's solution apart from the competition.

Do you want to add these features to the VPN?

Offline Editing

A traditional VPN requires a stable and active connection to the corporate firewall to function. A disruption in the Internet or an interrupted connection to the firewall interrupts employees' work with unsaved files. With offline editing, remote workers can save and edit documents without an active connection and save the files asynchronously to a corporate file server once the connection is restored.

Always On

A firewall vendor typically offers VPN without an always-on feature. Always-on VPN requires more infrastructure components such as identity servers, authentication servers, compatible clients OS, etc. However, most modern cloud applications are always-on, allowing offline access to files and folders and storing files on a local device before synchronizing them with online servers.

High Performance

Accessing file servers is hardly high-performance, because when a VPN serves as an enabler, file access is done via the SMB/CIFS protocol. First of all, the SMB protocol is not a data streaming protocol with many requests and responses. If we can switch to HTTP streaming for file transfer, performance will improve. Second, HTTP-based file transfer traffic can take advantage of a global content delivery network, so HTTP is faster for cross-continent transfer.