I am turning to the brain trust here for some assistance. At the company I work for, we deal with a number of vendors who like sending us large files. These are typically files that are over the sane limits of email, and due to the various regulatory entities that govern our business, we can't allow our users access to …
This topic was created by J. Cook .
Sounds like our system (http://confdex.co.uk) is exactly what you need. We specialise in health and social care but also have a music business customer who moves big stem files between producers and musicians using it. This system is in use across the whole of Public Health England.
Hi,
I don't know of an immediate solution myself, however I might be able to offer a very regulatory friendly one for the future…
At my company, Datalynx, we’re presently part way through building a new IaaS cloud specifically targeted at use cases requiring strong regulatory compliance, and the security compliance that goes with that. We don’t have a web site up yet, but I made a short blog post on the project here;
http://clustersandclouds.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/a-cloud-in-potentia/
The Q1 goal’s slipped a bit, it’s now more likely Q2 2014 for GA I’m afraid. Still though, the whole goal is to provide a cloud which can stand up to a vendor audit and provides clarity as to which legal jurisdiction it’s subject to.
We plan to offer SaaS product on top of this, including a couple which may be relevant to your use case. We’re considering an OwnCloud product for SMEs, and we’ll probably have a BizCloud (www.bizcloud.com) product as well. We also have a product in the works called Loomion (www.loomion.com), although that’s more targeted at the C-suite.
Hope this helps, if you’d like any more info please feel free to drop me a line via the blog :)
Thanks,
Chris
*DISCLAIMER* I work for Huddle
Huddle are purpose built to do secure sharing of documents with audit trails, and we have local government in both UK and US using us for that very reason.
We don't automatically remove files, but you can remove access to keep it as an archive if you require.
It's certainly worth a look, http://www.huddle.com, and we keep files in the EU which may matter to some of your clients.
Don't understand why the user won't use OwnCloud?
It is relatively easy to set up and use on a Debian platform, a little harder to set up on IIS, but doable.
Security is in the eye of the beholder, both platforms can be locked down to nearly anyone's requirements.
Inquring minds and all that.....
Reading the request, seems to me that you have similar requirements to those running transaction data rooms. The need to have a hosted solution to which people can load or access files of all sizes, have fully configurable user access under client control, with proper security and audit trail.
Have search on the terms data room provider or electronic data room. I've used Merrill Corporation services as a data room manager, and found the system was excellent, and not expensive for the service on offer (though you'll be paying a lot more than Dropbox for the capabilities you want). There's plenty of competition in the sector, so just make sure you're not paying over the odds just because many other customers come fromn the "money no object" banking sector.
You could have a look at http://www.solarwinds.com/serv-u-managed-file-transfer-server.aspx
(There is an interactive demo on this page as well.)
Keeps all your data in your environment. You send emails with the relevant links automatically generated, so no technical expertise needed at the far end. You make files available at certain times or make them time out if you wish. AD integrated, virtual machine.
So no keeping your data on 3rd party servers inside or outside your country. It's worth a look.
Synology NAS boxes offer some nice applications, and might be a "friendly" way for uploading.
http://www.synology.com/
(I am not in any way affiliated with Synology, I just love their equipment as a customer)
A lot of the recommendations depend on exactly what your vendors are struggling with - why can't they use existing solutions, what is the sticking point?
-- Pete.
Objective Connect is another option that you could consider
(FYI I am an employee of Objective)
It is cloud based solution, accessible from a web browser and implementing government grade security
More information and the ability to signup for a free account is available at
https://secure.objectiveconnect.com/
We had a client looking to share large files, CAD architectural drawings, but without having them hosted outside of the UK so we developed a solution.
The service allows for easy uploading of documents, easy adding new subscribers, document control [locking, deleting etc] and much more.
Drop me a line, andy.poulton@bristolitcompany.com if it sounds as if it might fit your needs.
You've talked about your hesitancy on using a service like Dropbox, and 49% of organizations block access to consumer file-sharing solutions like Dropbox and Box. Yet their employees are using these services to share sensitive information.
Enterprise organizations need a solution that offers file-level security - security that will travel with the file wherever it goes, giving lifetime control of documents. A solution with the ability to “unshare” a document if needed, while also enabling workplace collaboration already exists today - check out Intralinks VIA.
- Esther Hollander, Intralinks
I can wholeheartedly recommend egress.com.
We use it for the secure transfer of medical data and have placed a link to a secure form on our website at www.qinec.com (go to the bottom and click "Send us data securely")
Highly effective and secure service (with all the relevant certifications) run by a great bunch of guys who started it on their own and are growing like wildfire.
Hi J.,
After reading your query, I thought you might be interested in exploring Brainloop (www.brainloop.com) to securely transfer large files both internally and externally. As the US Marketing Manager with Brainloop I can say that the service is easily configured to make sure only people authorized to see information can see it. With Brainloop you can set and monitor audit trails for every activity including logins, file accesses, opens, or edits – meeting compliance regulations set forth by various industries.
Behind all the interfaces is the Brainloop platform where you can easily set up a folder or portal for ad hoc projects. Once the folder is established, you can invite people and define who can have permissions and how they are able to access the information. For example, some participants can only “view” documents, as opposed to edit them. Extra security levels are available, and easily applicable.
Brainloop lets you share information while managing collaboration. Essentially, it’s a one-stop solution for securing cloud shares, email servers, PGP keys, Groupware, virtual datarooms, mobile security, and ERP integration. If you’d like a free trial, please visit www.brainloop.com.
Thank you,
Geni
This post has been deleted by its author
Look no further. Check out Objective Connect at http://www.objectiveconnect.co.uk
Secure file sharing with data soverenty, government grade security, more control, reporting, audit trail and dead easy to use. Desktop client that works just like Dropbox is coming in Jan. It can also integrate to SharePoint and Trim.
You might want to try www.lock-box.com if you want a simple and private client portal on your website.
It's very easy (compared to FTP). Simply add one line of HTML (iframe) to your website to setup the Lockbox client portal. Then your vendors interact directly with your website (without you opening up your firewall!). Privacy is ensured via client-side encryption and client-side keys. Has auditing and allows you to choose where your encrypted documents reside (e.g. your closest S3 server).
Getting back to J.Cook's original requirements it would seem the problem is the reception of large files via email from third-parties, with whom he has little control of.
Now in the past I've had problems with the sending of large files and jumped on Ipswitch's MOVEit Ad-hoc Transfer, because this has plug-in's that integrate with MS Outlook and web browser. Once configured the user see's little change and still goes about using these tools in the normal way. However, under the hood the MFT is working, so that when files over a specified size are attached the MFT moves the file to a server, and attaches a URL to the email instead. The recipient merely needs to click on the attachment to initiate download of the attachment.
This is great for sending files out, but not for reception as you have no control over third-parties and what they are running on their systems. Short of demanding that they subscribe to a third-party exchange service there is little that can be done to prevent them using email.
Therefore I suggest that you create a dedicated email server/account for this traffic, potentially on a different domain to your normal end user email accounts. This server can be given different parameters concerning size limits, enabling items received to be formally checked in and distributed within your organisation in a controlled way. You may also wish to set up an email pre-processor, on your normal email service, that captures emails with particularly types of attachments and redirects them to your specialist email server, users needing access to such captured emails can either use a web-service or a hotline to request delivery. The reason for suggesting a dedicated server etc. is for simplicity (it only needs to support SMTP) and to protect end user email services from the side effects of receiving complete VM images as a series of attachments...
Obviously as some have pointed out, you could still cater for those suppliers who are able to use a website etc. through locally hosted solutions such as that provided by Sharepoint etc.
All:
Apologies for being... less than responsive. (it's been an insane 6 months here; the icon is appropriate on my part.)
The company I'm researching this for is, in fact, based in the US. (sort of; it's owned by a native american tribe, so technically, it's owned by a sovereign nation) It's an entertainment company, and we have vendors send us large images and other media files for our marketing people to use. These vendor usually use dropbox or some other file sharing service, which causes problems for the marketing people. We have dropbox and other file sharing sites blocked for security reasons, hence the desire to see what others are using in regards for self-hosted solutions.
The suggestions for using a Qnap appliance were... appreciated, albeit amusing; our company is a mid-size organization with a couple thousand employees and a fairly beefy infrastructure. (multiple Netapp FAS filers backing multiple VMware clusters and a a couple hundred virtual servers.) We self-host our web sites, although a third party does the care and feeding on it.
One of the reasons for looking at a self-hosted solution was compliance-related; we want to tightly control who has access to the server on both the internal and external side for data loss prevention purposes. (It's also why there's a global block on file sharing sites.)
While I'd love to use a simple FTP server, this entails our marketing users (and their vendors by extension) figuring out an FTP client to send us files. We tried that, and it didn't work out terribly well. We could *probably* get permission to unblock dropbox for our marketing staff, but that locks us into using them as a vendor. (we did that with YouSendIt until they changed names and made us go 'waaaait a minute...')
The whole project got thrown on the back burner (and hence, my apparent disconnect over the past months) due to staff turnover. (And the less said regarding that, the better.) However, the issue has been raised again which prompted me to look and see what everyone's suggestions were.
Again, thank you to everyone for the suggestions, the discussion, and amusement.
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