A service provider is helping his client migrate to the Cloud. The file server to be migrate doesn't have a lot of data, about 400G. In today's standard, 400G isn't much, so the service provider is set on a path to migrate the client's file server to SharePoint. The only way to migrate to SharePoint is via a tool called SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT). However, they found out that the tool constantly complained about long file names and kept asking the file name to be trimmed and fixed. The short story is that after two months, the migration is still not finished. Looking in the hind-sight, they wish they could have adopted a lift-and-shift migration strategy.
Lift-and-shift is a migration strategy that involves creating another set of virtual machines in Azure, AWS, or a regional co-location data center and moving the data on the local file server to the virtual machines in the data centers. Once the data migration (robocopy!) is done, the DNS name for the file server can be quickly switched from the on-premise file server to point to the file server in the Cloud. With this kind of process, lift-and-shift is also known as rehosting. It is a relatively fast and inexpensive way to migrate data from on-premises to the Cloud, and the best part of it is that it is backward compatible after DNS redirection.
Yes! You can have a SharePoint-like or OneDrive-like user interface after you lift-and-shift file servers into Azure or AWS, while at the same time keeping the SMB/CIFS file server network share backward compatibility with on-premise client workstations. Before we discover how it is done, let's read a few more stories.
An engineering firm has four offices in Texas. The main office is in Dallas, with over 50% of the employees work from the Dallas office while employees from the other offices access the file servers via site-to-site VPN to the main Dallas office. There is a mesh-like SD-WAN network among the four offices, so logically all four offices are like an extensive local area network. After the pandemics started in 2020, most of the employees are working from home, so when the Dallas office is down (such as losing power to the building), all four offices are down without file server access, and it is a classic single point of failure. They plan to lift and shift the Dallas file servers to Azure's south-central data center in San Antonio to mitigate the single point of failure. The Azure data center has better Internet bandwidth and power supply. But the problem is that employees working from home still need to use Site-to-Point VPN to connect to the file servers and thus single-point-of-failure again. They would welcome a solution that provides a better VPN-less solution for remote file server access.
The on-premise NetApp contract will expire, and the CIO doesn't want to renew it anymore. He hired a local IT consultant to help him move to the Cloud. The only requirement is not to repeat the same NetApp contract for the years to come but replace it with something new, something modern, and something in the Cloud. The IT consultant lift-and-shift the NetApp SMB workload into a regional data center and front the SMB interface with a Triofox solution. The CIO gets a solution that is backward compatible with on-premise workload and at the same time receives a SharePoint-like user interface with a browser interface, mobile applications, and remote Windows and Mac file server access without the need for a VPN.
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Triofox adds secure mobile access and file sharing, disaster prevention and recovery, to file servers in the cloud with a SharePoint-like user interface. It is the real cloud file server solution you have been looking for!
Triofox bridges file servers and cloud storage for secure remote access without the need of a VPN.
Accessing files and folders directly from within a web browser as if it is as interactive as from a desktop drive.
Triofox leverages cloud storage for secure mobile file sharing from a web browser or a mobile application.
Employees can share files and folders with external business partners with permission controls, expiration dates, and web links.
At work, we access Windows file servers from mapped shared drives. Our tasks include accessing files and folders from Windows explorer on a mapped drive letter and sharing files with co-workers when we're in the office. These shared drives from the Windows file server are reliable and productive.
But when we leave the office, it's not so easy. The VPN is slow, problematic, and unreliable. FTP and WebDav are no help and even worse than a VPN. Email attachments generate large zip files and are likely to get blocked.
Data stays on corporate file servers. Existing permissions govern remote and mobile access. File editing and modification permanently save back to the file's original location.
Enforce Permissions
Combines NTFS permissions, Active Directory users and drive mappings with mobile access from any device.
Inherits file server compliance and allows admins to run HIPAA or GDPR compliance checks and generate reports demonstrating mobile file access and collaboration compliance.
Files are cached locally, so access feels instant without the cumbersome setup of remote desktops or VPN file sharing. Users get local performance when working remotely.
Legacy applications may continue to use the original file shares, which remain unchanged even as Gladinet provides remote and mobile access to the same file shares from any device.
Minimize user training with a mapped drive that works the same on-premises or remotely. Provide a seamless local experience for users across multiple device factors.
Gladinet solutions have a web server component that accepts file requests from client agents and mobile applications 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. Gladinet uses this approach to combine the power of a mapped drive with the simplicity of web browsing and the handy mobile applications to present a unified file and folder view across multiple device factors!
Gladinet solution contains a web server front end accepting client agent requests from remote Windows, Mac, web browser, iOS and Android devices. Mobile applications present files and folders and related functionality.
Mobile applications send HTTPS/SSL requests to the Gladinet server. Gladinet server can log the requests for auditing purposes and coordinate the file access and sharing demands before forwarding requests to file servers.
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 such as mobile applications.
VPN, FTP and WebDAV have high support ticket counts. Time away from productive work is a cost too.
Sharing large folders over the Internet as email attachments can be cumbersome, problematic and slow.
Avoid the headaches of data sets split between local file servers and online cloud storage such as Dropbox.
It is harder for businesses to pass compliance checks with ad-hoc file sharing services.
Modern mobile workforces are used to mobile first with mobile applications and web based file manager.
Eliminate threats from de-centralized security and the invasion of personal cloud accounts.
Cloud-style mobility and local file server security are working together in a unified fashion.
Businesses can address data privacy concerns by using Triofox 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 CentreStack can facilitate that in any private cloud, but CentreStack offers the unique option of using existing file servers to replace cloud file sharing!
Simplify remote 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, Edge and Internet Explorer.
Provide an always-on mapped drive that works anywhere on any device and allows mobile users to access internal file shares or cloud file servers easily. Windows file server network shares and shared drive become online shared folders guarded by the same security measures as those from on-premise file servers and governed by the same Active Directory.
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. When files and folders can stay in place with the Windows file servers, the security parameters are smaller and simpler than a public online sharing service and easier to pass compliance tests.
Easily collaborate with business partners by providing them with access to a limited set of internal files or folders. Share files with non-AD users while maintaining administrative controls. Simplify multi-site collaboration with automatic version controls and file locking. Mobile workers will see the same content in the online shared folder as if they were from an internal mapped drive.
Mapped drives display directory structure but delay downloads until a user's file action, which reduces bandwidth usage and endpoint storage consumption. Shared folders and files also have generated web links, showing them in a web browser-based file manager. The files will not be actively downloaded or viewed (as in secure-data-room) until users generate access intents.
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. Internal shared drive, with the Triofox server's help, has new online folder representations over HTTPS (SSL) protocols and RESTful APIs for client agents and mobile applications.
Triofox provides a white-labeled platform that makes it easy for MSP partners to build a private online file sharing solution based on Amazon, Windows Azure, or Google Cloud infrastructure. MSPs can even create the white-labeled solution inside their most preferred data center on a per-client basis with per-client branding support.
Centrally manage users, access controls, and storage for the business. Easily keep track of where the data is, who has access and how it's shared. A centralized web-based management portal provides a single-pane-of-glass-style management console to manage shared folders and shared files, and other objects in the management scope.
Triofox has the flexibility to provide an on-premises alternative to Dropbox, OneDrive, and SharePoint using existing file servers. You can modernize your file server so much that it is the same as those from public domains from the online file sharing solution's perspective. At the same time, the solution keeps all the file server security and data ownership benefits.
For complete control and visibility, administrators can manage permissions from the file server that was their source. Businesses and their employees accumulate the NTFS permission structure over years of active use and practice. Those NTFS permissions will be inherited by Triofox and continue to control access to online folder sharing.
Centrally manage users, access controls, and storage for the business. Admins can perform audits of GDPR and HIPAA compliance or keep track of any changes to individual files. It is easier to pass compliance tests when the Triofox servers and Windows servers' IT infrastructure is under your supervision and control.
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