Remote Working: On-cloud and On-premises Remote Collaboration and File Sharing for existing data | Solution Brief

SOLUTION BRIEF | © Copyright Storage Made Easy® 2020 1
CHALLENGE
Many companies find themselves in a position where a significant part of their workforce works
remotely. The key challenge for many companies is how to make company data available remotely in
a way that is easy for employees to use without compromising on information security.
ENTERPRISE FILE FABRIC™ FOR SECURE REMOTE COLLABORATION AND SHARING
The Enterprise File Fabric™ provides a secure content management solution that encompasses
existing On-Premises files and/or On-Cloud files. It unifies files in disparate storage platforms to
provide a single cohesive way for people to securely work and collaborate.
Existing files are not moved or transferred, instead the File Fabric indexes existing data and caches
this metadata to facilitate secure access.
SOLUTION BRIEF
ON-CLOUD / ON-PREMISES REMOTE COLLABORATION
AND FILE SHARING FOR EXISTING DATA
SECURE REMOTE WORKING WITH DFS / WINDOWS FILERS / SMB / NAS / SAN / AMAZON S3 / AZURE + MORE

KEY SOLUTION BENEFITS
• Promotes Secure Remote Working using companies’ existing data.
• Best-of-breed App integrations including Windows / Mac Desktop using native ‘Home Drives’,
Microsoft Office / Office Online / Zoho Office / Outlook / Mac Mail + more.
• Can be setup for secure FIPS encryption of some data or all data, wherever stored.
• Integrates into existing Company Identity Access Management solutions – LDAP, SAML, Active
Directory, and Azure Federated Directory Services.
• No need to forgo Data Governance / Compliance due to home working – facilitates GDPR,
HIPAA, CCPA.
• Real-Time PII discovery module protects against sensitive data getting out in the wild.
• Multi Channel end user access - Web, Desktop drives and Mobile Apps.
• No need to rip and replace - works with what a company already has.
• Accelerates end user data access by a factor of 10X with M-Stream®'s multi-threaded
uploads/downloads/ transfers.
• A single namespace across locations eliminates data complexity through a unified view of
data.
• Private drop box type experience provides the convenience of remote working while
ensuring security and corporate governance.
• Optimized for a number of vertical markets – Healthcare, Education, Finance, Retail, Service
Providers, Media and Entertainment.

KEY FEATURES
✓ Multi-Cloud
Works with on-premises data and/or on-cloud data. Supports over 60 storage solutions.
✓ Collaboration
Team collaboration with shared folders, virtual workspaces and file commenting and
integrates into best-of-breed solutions such as Slack and Microsoft Teams.
✓ Policy - Based Governance
Set specific measurable and auditable governance options.
✓ Real Time Alerts
Receive real-time alerts of any file activity using the Audit Watch feature.
✓ Geo - Location Recording
Captures timing as well as source and endpoint locations of file transfer.
✓ Accelerated File Transfer Performance
M-Stream® multi-threaded, parallel data stream, accelerates large file downloads,
uploads, and tiering.
✓ Secure File Sharing
Establish passwords and permissions to access files, determine if/when a file link expires,
and the number of times a file can be accessed.
✓ File Archive
End users can easily restore versions or backups on demand using the ForeverFile feature.
✓ File Locking, Versioning and Comments
Prevents inadvertent end-user data loss and provides enhanced collaboration.

MAIN CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS
1. Securely access files stored on-site in Windows Filers / DFS / NAS / SAN from home.
Many companies are in the situation where they may have Windows filers in their office and/or other
forms of local storage such as NAS / SAN / SharePoint / Object Storage etc. Moving this data to the
Cloud may not be an option particularly if it is sensitive data. If people are out of the office it can be
difficult for them to be able to access these files.
The File Fabric works with Windows Filers, CIFS, NFS, SMB, NAS, SAN, SharePoint, and Object Storage
(such as Amazon S3 and Azure) and it provides an easy way for employees to securely access files,
using existing authentication mechanisms (Active Directory, LDAP or SAML) coupled with additional
two-factor authentication (2FA) which means that once a user has authenticated with their domain
credentials, for additional security, an OTP challenge can be set.
For many users they won’t even see the difference in their workflow even though they are not within
the bounds of the corporate network.

2. Cloud ‘home’ drives and App integrations keep user workflows similar to their office
environment.
Most user workflows are very ingrained. Email, Home Drive and relevant Apps. Productivity can drop
when these workflows are removed, and worse than that, it is the very act of this modification of
change of routine that can often result in security or compliance issues.
The File Fabric provides a home drive, just like the ones that employees are used to in the office,
except the files are stored remotely (on-cloud or in the office) and are downloaded on authenticated
access with strict security and compliance policy enforcement.
Additionally the File Fabric integrates into best of breed applications such as Microsoft Outlook, Mac
Mail, Microsoft Office / Libre Office, and other productivity applications such as Slack, Microsoft
Teams and even enterprise applications such as SalesForce.

Users don’t need to change their workﬂows to work with the File Fabric, the File Fabric embeds itself
into their existing productive corporate workﬂows.

3. Secure password protected file sharing minimizes security risks and makes
collaboration easier.
Secure link sharing, rather than adding files as attachments has many benefits both for the company
and remote workers.
Firstly, from a bandwidth viewpoint, it’s much ‘lighter’ and easier for remote employees to share files
using links rather than large file attachments. From a security viewpoint these links can be password
protected, have download limits and time expiry polices set against them. Companies can also
ensure that if remote data is shared, then the sharer has to be specific about who the data is being
shared with and why. This is a key tenet of legislation such as GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA.
Finally, such shared links are also audited and logged, again for legislation purposes, to fulfil for
example Subject Access Requests.

4. PHI / PII constant real-time checks protect existing and new data.
Of particular concern is compliance legislation and obligations therein and also the vulnerability to
breaches because of a disruption in company workflow, which could lead to inadvertent sharing of a
folder or bucket which contains sensitive information.
In the first instance, the mechanism in which the File Fabric facilitates secure link based file / folder
sharing should put a stop to any need to ever share Amazon or Azure buckets / containers directly,
but additionally the File Fabric can be setup to constantly scan for the presence of sensitive
information.

This works against existing data and with new data that employees may be uploading from home. If
sensitive data is discovered in content then a data automation rule can be pre-configured to take an
action, such as move the file/folder to a non shareable location and flag the issue to a pre-nominated
person.
5. DLP helps protect documents that should be visible to customers and partners but
not downloadable.
Working remotely can cause issues with sharing documents, particularly the types of documents that
users wished to share for viewing only ie. not downloadable. When face-to-face this is easy as you
can just open a laptop and put in front of the other person but its not so easy when working from
home.

SOLUTION BRIEF | © Copyright Storage Made Easy® 2020
10
The File Fabric facilities this by providing the ability to define view only permissions in which
documents can only be viewed from a web browser and in which the document is digitally
watermarked with a trackable code that can be tracked and tied back to the sharer and the person
shared with.
6. Compliance policies and enforcement ensure that remote working does not lead to a
compliance breach.
We have heard a lot from CISO’s and Companies in general that one of the key capabilities that they
require is to protect the sensitive data remote employees access, share and collaborate on while
working remotely from the office.
Whereas confidential corporate information such as financial data, contracts, etc used to be locked to
office infrastructure access, as more employees begin working from home more of this type of data
is accessed and worked on remotely.

SOLUTION BRIEF | © Copyright Storage Made Easy® 2020
11
The File Fabric’s Policy enforcement engine is exposed to end user administrators to ensure that
company policies and compliance legislative polices can be applied transparently across companies’
on-premises and on-cloud file stores.
7. Less bandwidth on home broadband means large files become more of a problem –
File Transfer Acceleration solves this.
As discussed earlier, using shared links instead of file attachments can save a lot of bandwidth but
also the File Fabric can be configured to use a feature called M-Stream which stands for ‘Multiple
Streams’ in which large files can be parcelled up, sent in parallel, and then put back together again.
This can dramatically speeds up file transfers of large files and it works from cloud-to-desktop and
desktop-to-cloud.

8. Making it easier to share with Internal and external users.
Often employees have a need to share a group of ﬁles with an external customer, partner etc.
Making this easy to achieve not only helps with employee productivity, it helps minimize security risks
as employees are not tempted to ﬁnd their own way to achieve sharing.

The File Fabric can enable the secure sharing of a password protected folder that users can be
shared files ‘with’ or share files ‘to’. As with everything the File Fabric does, this can work with Amazon
S3, Azure etc.
If users want to share with an internal users then this can easily be done using Shared Team Folders
or using Permalinks to files:
Of course sometimes sharing or collaborating can be more discrete, such as a comment on a file to a
user:

Or it can be simple productivity gains of the File Fabric’s content search in which all ﬁle contents are
indexed and searches performed that cross each of the data silos. This works across all clients and
Apps:
Separately, the File Fabric can also facilitate a virtual workspace, similar to a data room. This is
especially useful if there are several parties that need to collaborate:

SUMMARY
The Enterprise File Fabric helps remote workers work with existing on-premises and on-cloud
company data without introducing any new data sources to facilitate remote working. Workflows can
be kept similar to what they are in the office, and access can be secure using existing corporate
authentication mechanisms whilst security and compliance polices are satisfied.
ABOUT
STORAGE MADE EASY®
The Storage Made Easy Enterprise File Fabric™ enables IT to regain control of
"cloud data sprawl" to unify on-premises and on-cloud files into a single easily
managed converged infrastructure with policy-based controls for governance,
audit and security.
The File Fabric solution provides a “blanket” enterprises wrap around all their
data: on premises, within public and private clouds, as well as on third-party
software vendor clouds (SharePoint Online and Salesforce for example).
Customers use the SME File Fabric product to unify corporate data to enable
workgroup collaboration with universal controls for security, encryption, audit,
and data access. Companies will have access to a greater understanding of
where and how sensitive data is stored, transferred, and accessible
with particular focus on how companies are able to police and audit data to
ensure enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in
addition to other regional data legislation.
USA +1 415 477 1053
UK +44 20 8212 7316
EU +41 435 080 078
sales@storagemadeeasy.com
Free hosted and enterprise trials available from
www.storagemadeeasy.com
@SMEStorage
/StorageMadeEasy
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Remote Working: On-cloud and On-premises Remote Collaboration and File Sharing for existing data | Solution Brief

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Remote Working: On-cloud and On-premises Remote Collaboration and File Sharing for existing data | Solution Brief