File Server Offline Access

Do you have field engineers that need to work from trailers with spotty wi-fi?
Do you have employees that need to go into client's facilities without Internet access?
And at the same time, do they need to access documents on the company file server?

Story 1 - Field Engineers Access Company File Servers

Many companies have remote workers working from different cities and different job trailers. To access company file servers, they typically rely on either VPN or RDP. However, both VPN and RDP require stable active VPN connections. If the job sites don't have good Internet connectivity, the employees out there in the field may not be able to get access to files and folders over a VPN. When that happens, the employees are likely to ask co-workers back at the head-quarter to send him somehow a copy of the file.

The ad-hoc ways to send files to field engineers are likely to involve emailing attachments to the remote employees working from job trailers. From the CIOs' perspective, it is not efficient, nor is it productive.

A better way is to keep an "offline favorite" folder on the employees' remote desktops or laptops. The offline folder can pre-fetch any modified files ahead of time and then save any modified files locally on the remote device and synchronize the files back to corporate file servers when the Internet connectivity is good.

Story 2 - Accessing Company File Servers from Client's Premise

You may have employees that need to go to the client's premises, buildings, and job locations to get the job done. The client premises don't provide guest Internet connectivity for security clearance reasons or other compliance regulation reasons. Often, employees had to sync up the files and folders (for example, building CAD drawings) a night before at the hotel before they go into the client's premises the next day. This process is inefficient and could break if the hotel doesn't allow VPN tunnels to go over the Hotels' wi-fi system.

Other solutions such as Dropbox, OneDrive, or even Windows Offline Folder can help, but each has its problems. Solutions such as Dropbox and OneDrive require taking files and folders away from company file servers. In the end, it creates duplicate sets of data silos, some data are in the file server, and some other data are in the online services. Windows Offline Folder also has its issues because it is almost deprecated to give ways to OneDrive and SharePoint. 

You need to keep data on file servers and offer an offline folder for remote workers.

Requirement - You have to keep data on file servers

The requirement to keep data on current file servers could come from multiple reasons. It could be application compatibility so that you have some special applications that need to run on file servers. It could be privacy and control requirements or simply it is cheaper to run file servers in a local virtualized environment than running it in the cloud.  So the offline folder features introduced need to work directly with the file servers without shipping data to other online storage services. 

  1. Unified Data Management - Your file servers are still the best common playground for your business applications. You have an independent workload using various cloud storage solutions, which drives data into separate silos. It is time to consolidate data into one platform.
  2. Remove VPN and RDP dependency - VPN and RDP are traditional ways to access file server data. However, they also require steady and active connections back to the corporate firewall for the access method to work. One of the requirements is to be able to remove these dependencies. Offline folders provide the ability to access file server network shares over a web protocol (such as HTTPS) which doesn't require concurrent active connections to a corporate firewall (VPN-less file server access).
  3. Centralized Mobility - Employees demand mobility when they work from home and remote locations. Initially, cloud-based file sync and share solutions look promising. However, over some time, some business applications were left behind on corporate file servers. The business is facing a situation that mobility means different tools for the diverse workload. It is better to consolidate mobility into one centralized data platform.

Why choose Gladinet? Why not OwnCloud?

Triofox Solution

With the Gladinet solution, the cloud file access solution is interoperable with existing file server network shares and offers offline folder capabilities. It comes with Active Directory integration, cloud drive mapping, global file locking, and the NTFS permission control integrations. These native integrations make the file-sharing solution more like an extension of the current file server instead of another data silo that takes data away.

Mapped Drive

Mapped drive over the HTTPS channel to the corporate file server is a crucial feature. Employees are familiar with a mapped drive, and no additional training is required.

Active Directory

Corporate users already have corporate identities in Active Directory and related Active Directory federation service and SAML single-sign-on. They don't need yet another set of credentials to access a file-sharing solution.

File Locking

Most file-sharing solutions offer manual file locking in the forms of "file check-in" and "check out." Gladinet provides automatic file locking by detecting file opening requests. When Microsoft Word opens a file, the file locking process will be initiated automatically and finished automatically when the file editing finishes.

File Permissions

Finally, integrating with Active Directory and NTFS permission makes it easier for system administrators to set up the permission control. The permission features make the Gladinet solution stands out among its peers.

Step 1

Easy Deployment
SharePoint On-Premises requires at least two servers, a database server and a storage server which IT must manage. Triofox is much easier to deploy on a clean Windows Server.

Familiar User Experience
SharePoint is challenging as a file server migration destination. Triofox provides a mapped drive over HTTPS for simplified access from anywhere.

No Additional Training Required
Triofox's drive-based access requires no training. Right-click to share or request file transfers.

Simplify Management
Triofox is much simpler to manage with auditing, reporting and policy-based administration.

Step 2

Data Privacy
Businesses can address data privacy concerns by providing access to internal file servers. Triofox offers the unique option of cloud-enabling existing file servers to replace cloud file sharing.

Data Security
Files are secured at rest and in transit with military grade encryption and secure connections. Save setup time and money by automatically using existing users and permissions.

Maintain Compliance
Centrally manage users, access controls, and storage for each tenant. Admins can perform audits of GDPR and HIPAA compliance or keep track of any changes that have been made to individual files.

Data Remains of your Local File Servers
Unlike SharePoint, which require you to upload your confidential data, Triofox leaves all shared files on your file servers intact. Triofox keeps data in one place for both file server shares and cloud file sharing instead of allowing data to scatter.

Step 3

Remote and Mobile Access
Simplify remote access to file shares with familiar instances on any computer or device. Windows and Mac desktops display natively mapped drives in Explorer and Finder. The same experience is presented on iOS and Android devices, as well as popular web browsers.

Simplified Management
Centrally manage users, access, controls, and storage for each tenant. Admins can perform audits of GDPR and HIPAA compliance or keep track of any changes that have been made to individual files.

Folder Permissions Management
For complete control and visibility, permissions can be managed from the source file server or natively with Triofox.

Hybrid Deployments
With Triofox, data saved to file shares is replicated to the cloud and vice versa, to ensure business continuity with hybrid deployments.

Step 4

Simplified Collaboration
Work with business partners by providing them with access to a limited set of internal files or folders. Share files with non Active Directory users while maintaining administrative controls. Simplify multi-site collaboration with automatic version controls and file locking.

Increase Productivity
Provide a mapped drive that works anywhere on any device and allows mobile users to easily access internal file shares or cloud file servers.

On-Demand Synchronization
Mapped drives display directory structure but delay downloads until a file is used to reduce bandwidth usage and endpoint storage consumption.

Change Notification
With Triofox, you can receive automatic alerts that help keep track of all changes in the system.

Step 5

Reduce Costs with a simple VPN Alternative
Eliminate the overhead and support tickets commonly associated with VPN file sharing, Always On VPN or Direct Access. Automatically use existing users and permissions to save setup time and money.

White Labeled File Sharing Solution
Triofox provides a white labeled platform that makes it easy for MSP partners to build a private cloud file server solution based on infrastructure from Amazon, or Microsoft Azure.

On-Premises Alternative to Dropbox and SharePoint
Triofox has the flexibility to provide an on-premises alternative to Dropbox and SharePoint using existing file servers.

Step 6

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Cloud Power + Web Simplicity + File Server Security.

Triofox 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. Triofox uses this approach to combine the power of a mapped drive with the simplicity of web browsing and the security of a VPN!

1. Triofox Web Server

Triofox 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. 

2. Agents Send File Requests

Client agents send HTTPS/SSL requests to the Triofox server. Triofox server can log the requests for auditing purposes and also coordinate the file access and sharing demands.

3. Active Directory Integration

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. 

How Triofox Offers Offline Folder Access Feature for File Servers

Triofox provides a drive letter (or mounted volume) for remote devices. Unlike VPN agents, the Triofox agent caches file locally in an on-demand fashion. Some most often used folders can be marked as "Offline Available," while others can stay with on-demand access. The access channel is over a web protocol, "HTTPS." Unlike VPN connections, the HTTPS connection is stateless by default and doesn't need to be constantly "active." The files inside the "Offline Available" folders will be pre-fetched. And any modification in the folder will be cached locally and synchronized back to corporate file servers once the connection is active again.

BENEFITS

Mobile File Share Access

Easily collaborate with business partners by providing them with mobile access to a limited set of internal files or folders. Share files with non-AD users while maintaining administrative controls. Simplify multi-site collaboration by consolidating multiple file shares for mobile access.

Mobile Access to File Servers

Simplify mobile access to file shares with familiar interfaces on any computer or device. Windows and Mac desktops display natively mapped drives in Explorer and Finder. That same experience is presented on iOS and Android devices like iPads, iPhones and Pixels or can be viewed from popular web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.

Reduce Costs with a Simple VPN Alternative

Eliminate the overhead and support tickets commonly associated with VPN file sharing, Always On VPN or Direct Access. Automatically use existing users and permissions to save setup time and money.

Enhance Data Security

Files are secured at rest and in transit with military-grade encryption, secure connections and more. Automatically use existing users and permissions to save setup time and money.

Centrally Manage Granular Folder Permissions

For complete control and visibility, permissions can be managed from the file server that was their source or natively redefined from scratch.

On-Demand Synchronization

Remotely mapped drives display directory structure but delayed downloads until a file is used to reduce bandwidth usage and endpoint storage consumption.

Guarantee Data Privacy

Businesses can address data privacy concerns by using Gladinet to provide access to internal file servers. It’s common to talk about replacing existing file servers with cloud solutions to reduce costs and administrative overhead, and Gladinet can facilitate that in any private cloud, but Gladinet offers the unique option of using existing file servers to service mobile file sharing!

Centralized Mobility

Companies don't have to use a different cloud file sharing solution while at the same time keeping the corporate file servers. The current file server infrastructure becomes the mobile file access and file sharing platform.

Increase Productivity

Provide an always-on mapped drive that works anywhere on any device and allows mobile users to easily access internal file shares or cloud file servers and share files and folders over the Internet.

On-Premises Alternative to Dropbox and SharePoint

Gladinet has the flexibility to provide an on-premises alternative to Dropbox and SharePoint using existing file servers.


Simplify Management

Centrally manage users, access controls, and storage for each employee. Easily keep track of where the data is, who has access and how it’s being shared.

Maintain Compliance

Centrally manage users, access controls, and storage for each tenant. Admins can perform audits of GDPR and HIPAA compliance or keep track of any changes that have been made to individual files.

Help employees boost mobile productivity with offline folder access to file servers!