mobile workforce accessing on-premise documents

Is Cloud the solution for on-premise file access, or is there a better solution? Cloud computing is not a new trend for small businesses, although it is a fast-growing one. According to Cisco, Cloud data center traffic had up to a 27% annual growth rate in four years and is expected to represent 95% of total global data center traffic by 2021. Moving on-premise workflow to a cloud data center improves business continuity. However, many businesses are still facing how to access file servers from the data centers.

VPN Services are still the most used for remote access.

Businesses today used VPN servers one way or the other. Client devices from remote locations equipped with a VPN client application can connect to the VPN server and tunnel back to the corporate network securely via the Internet connections. For businesses that moved a portion of the infrastructure into the Cloud, such as the AWS data center, AWS offers site-to-site VPN to enable access to your remote network from your VPN by creating an AWS site-to-site VPN connection.

VPN is not the ideal solution for the remote workforce

VPN (Virtual Private Network) alone as a tunneling protocol is acceptable to extend the corporate network to a remote location. However, the flaw comes from the other protocols running on top of the VPN. For example, for network shares served from file servers, the protocol has certain assumptions that don't work well over the Internet. These flaws include

No offline access available, and the remote device has to be constantly connected.
The communication will run into error conditions for a simple temporary glitch.
The constant request and response between the file server and the remote device renders transfer slow.

The rise of file sync and share

Remote workers know the limitations of VPN when it comes to offline access and large file transfer. While at the same time, another access pattern is rising from cloud storage applications, leading by the example of a Dropbox. The access pattern is that a user can deposit and edit files inside a local Dropbox folder and then, at a later time, synchronize with the centralized cloud storage hosting site. This file-sync-and-share pattern successfully solved the offline access and the large-file transfer problem.

The weakness of a file-sync-and-share setup

Dropbox and other file-sync-and-share applications such as OneDrive and Google Drive are fine where all the file access happens within the application's boundary. The weakness comes from the interoperability with the corporate infrastructure and the business applications. This weakness includes

These applications do not work with file servers. Instead, they want to replace and retire file servers. As a result, lengthy cloud migration is a necessary first step.
Many business applications are still dependent on file server infrastructures.
Many business applications produce large files or files with specific attributes that don't work with file sync and share.

The three pillars of centralized mobility

The centralized mobility includes centralized data (file server infrastructure), mobile and remote file access and web-based file sharing, and the unification of the underlying data and the mobile access and file sharing solution into one solution.

Centralized Data

File server infrastructure continues to be your centralized data repository and provides the best platform for application compatibility.

Mobile Access

File servers gain Web-based access and sharing features to provide mobile file access and secure web-link-based file-sharing capabilities.

Unified Solution

There is one solution for both internal file-server-based collaboration, file sharing with external partners, and the mobile workforce's productivity requirements.

Why Centralized Mobility?

While other similar products offer file sync and share, Gladinet Triofox is the one that focuses on file server enhancements. Gladinet takes care of the permission structure, the drive mapping, and the file locking from the group up, which you don't often find from other file sharing solutions. The benefit of the answer comes from the combination of file server infrastructure and cloud mobility. The file server infrastructure is at the center of the solution stack, with remote file access and a secure file sharing feature. This combination makes it easy for the mobile workforce to access on-premise documents securely.

Try Triofox Free

Data Ownership

You are using your file servers and existing Active Directory infrastructure to set up the file-sharing solution, guaranteed that the corporation still owns the data from their existing IT infrastructure.

Compliance

Self-Hosting the file-sharing solution makes it easy to set up data protection, data retention, and auditing policies for various regulatory compliances. And better yet, your file server as the data repository makes it easy to extend the existing auditing workflow.

Data Privacy

Using existing file servers as the data repository extends the current data privacy model. In addition to using a VPN to access corporate file servers, HTTPS-based access and web-link sharings are excellent additions to the file server functionality.

Data Management

Since your file server is the data repository for the self-hosted file sharing solution, data management and user management are becoming comfortable. You can still use your current life cycle management policies for your file server and use current identity providers for data access..

Data Control

Active Directory infrastructure continues to govern the file sharing access. Active directory federation or SAML single-sign-on can continue to authenticate users, and the NTFS permissions can continue to protect file accessing.

How does it work?

Triofox is easy to install and configure. One of our partners or we are here to assist with the setup.

Install Triofox Server

Run the Triofox installer on a clean Windows Server, and the installer will install all dependency components. Basic setup and configuration require only a few minutes. A reboot is required after the installation.

Configure File Server Shares

Enable Active Directory integration and file server discovery. You can then publish file server network shares to Active Directory users for secure, remote, and mobile access.

Professional Services

You can use the Triofox professional services team for setup, configuration, and training or work directly with one of our authorized partners. Click here to find a list of our trusted partners.

Mobile Workforce Accessing On-Premise Documents