Is limited network access affecting the productivity of your remote workforce? Do you need to share sensitive data with your customers and vice versa? And most importantly, do you need a solution that meets the annual compliance checklist?
You want to use the cloud to increase remote worker productivity or share sensitive data with your external partners and customers. You have thought about the cloud, but compliance regulations and security reviews are keeping you from using SharePoint, Box or ShareFile. Are compliance regulations or security requirements forcing you to store data on your file servers? How can you share files productively?
NBFC needs a shared storage solution that is not in the public cloud. NBFC needs a shared storage solution, comparable to SharePoint from an end-user perspective, for its external employees and contractors. The storage solution must first integrate with a single sign-on solution and be subject to regular certification audits and must meet certain compliance and regulatory requirements.
In this case, SharePoint is well suited for the general public, but not for organizations that have higher security requirements and compliance regulations. In the end, NBFC uses its own VMWare infrastructure to set up a self-hosted file-sharing solution that resembles SharePoint.
ONEIL needs a secure file sharing solution to receive sensitive information. ONEIL provides product support solutions for equipment manufacturers that produce satellite communications, aircraft and submarines, among other products. When equipment manufacturers approach ONEIL for a potential partnership, they must provide the company with sensitive product documents.
With NFC Vault, ONEIL uses its own file servers and Active Directory to set up a self-hosted file sharing solution that receives such sensitive information under Active Directory user identity control and securely stores the documents on its file servers protected by NTFS permissions. There is no public cloud involved in the process and customers can send the documents directly and securely.
The modern workforce is becoming increasingly mobile. In some industries, such as construction, there are more mobile workers. In other industries, there are fewer mobile workers, but more and more workers today are working from home. Working on the road and from home is not without its challenges. Are you familiar with the following issues?
A construction company has 16 TB of data on its file servers. The volume of data limited the options for cloud migration. Employees and field technicians used VPN to access the file server, but the VPN was not compatible with iPads. iPads are an essential part of the workflow. They are used to take photos of job sites. Engineers on site also use the Bluebeam application on the iPad to render CAD drawings. So the current digital foundation on the Windows file server did not meet the mobility requirements, and they were looking for a cloud solution that would allow mobile workers on the iPads while providing application compatibility on the file server with a huge amount of data
An oilfield services company migrated file servers to Azure as part of a "lift-and-shift" strategy to move on-site file servers to Azure data centers. Mobile workers currently use a Site-2-Point VPN to connect to file servers for remote and mobile access. However, as more employees work remotely, the CIO is concerned about the security risks of the VPN service and wants an alternative way to remotely access file servers without a 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.
There are many different options for your data and storage, as shown below. Most likely, your files and folders are stored in one of the following six locations. Perhaps you started with a local Windows File Server or local NetApp device and later migrated to a VMWare environment or migrated the workload to AWS or Azure in a lift-and-shift fashion. You may also be in the process of considering SharePoint, Box or ShareFile, or you may be using Amazon S3 or Azure Blob Storage directly. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. How should you decide?
Here are the six most popular storage platforms evaluated across key criteria
What does a strong digital foundation look like?
From the comparison above, we can see that each solution excels in different areas but none is perfect across all categories. Virtualized file server infrastructure (VMWare, Azure, AWS) performs strongly in several areas. The key opportunity lies in enhancing Web & Mobile capabilities - making this the critical factor when building a robust digital foundation for your organization.
Here are the most frequently mentioned functions for NFC Vault users. These standard features help you access files remotely without using a VPN and help you share files with external parties.
Drive Mapping
You use a drive letter or multiple drive letters to represent files in different business units. The drive mapping feature makes sure the external references in the files are preserved.
File Locking
You are using CAD software, Adobe Creative Suite, or any other software application that requires atomic updates for a group of files. This locking is an essential feature for protecting file updates.
Permissions
You use Active Directory and NTFS permissions to protect your files and folders, and use them to control multiple project folders. It would be helpful if you had continuity of folder permissions.
File Server
You are using Windows file servers or local NAS devices for your data. You need to enable remote file access to your file server network shares without data migration.
File Sharing
You need to share files and folders with internal employees and external parties. You want to share files and folders via web links with controls and parameters.
No VPN Required!
You want to stop using the corporate VPN and are looking for a way to remove your dependency on the VPN for remote file access. NFC Vault will meet your needs.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Make it easier for your teams to collaborate with customers successfully:
Outlook Integration
Instead of sending files as Outlook attachments, files and folders can be shared as links via Outlook.
Share Files and Folders
Files and folders can be turned into websites and accessed from web browsers or any mobile client.
Advanced Sharing
Policies such as expiration dates and read/write permissions can be attached to file sharing.
Send Large Files
Enhance large file transfers' performance by only sending the changes that were made instead of synchronizing the entire file.
Receive Files and Folders
Weblinks can be generated for web browser-based upload to receive files and folders.
Desktop Integration
File-sharing can be as easy as right-click on a file from within Windows Explorer.
Secure Data Room
Shared folders have optional secure data room features to enable view-only permissions that disable downloads.
Domain Control
The destination email domain is one of the white list parameters that control who can receive file-sharing invitations.
Granular Folder
Define different permissions for folders at different levels of the directory structure.
IP Address Control
The destination IP Address is another parameter to control who can be the receiver for a file-sharing action.
Co-Editing
Integrates with Office365 to take advantage of built-in co-editing features.
Notification
Keep track of important changes and events in the system.
Audit Trace and History
Maintain compliance and control by keeping track of all management tasks and activities.
File Sharing Reports
Keep track of all file-sharing activities. For example, it's easy to see who is sharing what with whom.
Granular Folder
Define different permissions for folders at different levels of the directory structure.
IP Address Control
The destination IP Address is another parameter to control who can be the receiver for a file-sharing action.
NFC Vault is a web server that accepts file requests from client agents over the HTTPS/SSL protocol. These requests are then translated into Active Directory and File Server network share access protected by NTFS permissions. When all permission checks have passed, the file is sent back via HTTPS/SSL to the client agents. NFC Vault uses this approach to combine the power of a mapped drive with the simplicity of web browsing and the security of a VPN!
NFC Vault creates a web server front end accepting client agent requests from remote Windows, Mac, web browser, iOS and Android devices. Client agents provide drive mapping functionality.
Client agents send HTTPS/SSL requests to the NFC Vault server. NFC Vault server can log the requests for auditing purposes and also coordinate the file access and sharing demands.
Active Directory and NTFS permissions are used to check whether the file requests are allowed. After that, file requests are satisfied and returned via HTTPS/SSL to client agents.
