Introduction
This white paper describes CentreStack with Active Directory Home
Directory integration. The solution can be used by businesses to privately deploy
and host a file sync and share solution, providing an access layer (browser, mobile, desktop
and file server access) around private cloud storage service and local file server
storage, and retaining full control of data and the related access infrastructure.
Problem Statement
The Remote Site Headache - You have multiple sites and remote offices.
For users from the remote sites, they are so used to save documents to the local
My Documents folder. Even though there is a file server local to the remote site, users
are still save documents to My Documents folder on their desktop. However, in the past
weeks, there were already several cases that the user’s PC broke down and together, took
away the data stored on it.
The Dropbox Problem - Some users from the remote sites are using Dropbox
on their own to solve the data backup problem. However, for your company, Dropbox
is both a solution and a problem. The company simply can’t allow users to sync files
anywhere because it needs to meet certain data compliance criteria. You have to
find a solution that is similar to Dropbox but allowing you to have full control
of the data.
Previous Options
The company already standardized on Microsoft technologies such as Active Directory
and File Server, with each user assigned a home directory from the file server.
There may be VPNs in between the main office and the remote office. But again, if
users are used to save documents to My Documents folder, not even bother to save
to the remote office’s local file server, How easy will it be asking the users to
connect the VPN, map a drive to active directory home directory and save documents
there? The usability barrier is just too high.
Ideally, you want to find a solution, that can turn the remote user’s My Documents
folder into an enterprise drop box, synchronize the local documents directly into
the company’s file server, inside each user’s Active Directory home directory.
CentreStack Solution
CentreStack provides a solution for the problem above by natively
integrated with Active Directory and the home directory settings in the Active Directory.
As an end result, User can easily access their home directory from web browser,
mobile devices, desktop and file servers.
There are many hurdles CentreStack overcome to make this happen.
- First, how to connect the remote offices to the company’s file server without setting
up VPN? How to get it done when the only communication channel is HTTPS?
- Second, how to monitor the My Documents folder and send the documents to user’s
home directory?
- Third, how to maintain security and single sign-on so only authorized users can
use the solution?
- Forth, how to link the user’s storage with user’s Active Directory home directory?
CentreStack solves the problem by creating a 3-tier architecture,
- The access clients on user’s desktop and on web browser;
- The Gladinet access infrastructure that can be installed on-premise;
- The ability to connect to enterprise file server as backend cloud storage.
Benefit 1 - Support Active Directory Users
There is no additional setup to add active directory users to the solution. Active
Directory users can simply log in to the on-premise Gladinet Cloud web portal.
Benefit 2 - Native integration with Home Directory
User's home directory information will be directly used for web browser based and
mobile device access.
Implementation
It is recommended that CentreStack be installed on Windows 2008 w/
Service Pack 2 servers, or Windows 2012/R2 servers. You can connect
the Active Directory to the CentreStack instance as the user manager.
You can also connect your local file server to the CentreStack Server.
Summary
At the end, the remote users can go to the enterprise web portal, download the access
client and turn their local folders into enterprise drop box folders. Files saved
to their local folder will be migrated to their user’s home directory folder automatically.
For more information, please contact Gladinet Support @ enterprise@gladinet.com
or visit http://www.gladinet.com
See Also
Installable Enterprise Sync & Share Solution
|
