Law firms and in-house attorneys are trying to make sense of new technologies like cloud computing due to the large volume of printed documents required for their services. According an article in the ABA Journal, “People often say that one terabyte equals 50,000 trees, and 10 terabytes would be the equivalent of all the printed collections of the Library of Congress.” The article outlines a survey in which only 9% of businesses surveyed indicated they were prepared enough to implement a cloud computing program to electronically store and exchange information. Why?
Today at Citrix Synergy, Citrix announced it is opening up ShareFile to create an extensible platform for sharing business data across a wide range of apps, devices and services. The new “Follow-Me-Data” platform will make it easy for third-party developers and vendors to incorporate common data services like search, share, sync, secure and remote wipe into their solutions through a set of open APIs.
ShareFile fits perfectly into the Follow-Me-Data vision of anywhere, anytime access to data and collaboration. The ShareFile service will continue to make it easy for businesses of all sizes to securely store, sync and share business documents and files, both inside and outside the company. Our centralized cloud storage capability allows users to share files across multiple devices and access them from any location, hence “Follow-Me-Data.”
We have always prided ourselves in fast upload speeds. In our effort to continually improve, our development team has created a function called the “Java Uploader,” which is now included in all ShareFile plans. I am sure many of our customers have noticed a significant increase in upload speeds and are wondering how it is done.
The uploader is actually a simple setting change in your account. After logging into your account, click “My Settings” on the right side of the top navigation bar. On the right side, you will see “Edit Upload Preferences.”
Then click “Java Uploader” and Save. As long as your internet connection can handle the speed, you should see significantly faster uploads.
To learn more about enhanced uploading, I went straight to the source, Josh Smith, our Infrastructure Developer.
When I asked Josh, he stated the idea actually came from a potential customer. A large company needed to upload large 2GB+ files many times a day. Anything we could do to improve upload speeds would save a lot of time and give them the ability to free up more resources. Knowing this would help all of our clients, our development team went right to work. The “potential” customer is now an actual customer.
There are plenty of articles out there telling you to back up your data- but who really stops during the middle of their work day to back-up? I would guess a pretty small percentage. It’s a hassle, its low on the priority list, and keeps getting pushed to the back burner—until something catastrophic happens in the instance of lost data. Uh-oh. Should have backed up. According to a recent article posted in CPA Practice Advisor, “recreating lost data from scratch will cost you between $2,000 and $8,000 per megabyte. For a typical PC with only normal data on it, that can run to $20,000 or more.” Is it worth it?
Did you know that each day some 5,760 hard drives will crash? An easy way to avoid the nightmare of lost data is to improve your practice with SaaS. Such services allow businesses to go on about their daily routine without the worry of file transfer and storage. Services that offer a portal are quickly becoming popular due to the easy to use delivery tool for clients. Accountants can easily post electronic versions of past tax returns and other relevant data so clients can access the documents 24/7 without interrupting workflow. Because that’s the goal, right?
Here at ShareFile, we know the importance of security, which is why we take the proper measures to protect our users. Our customers, and their customers and colleagues, trust us with sensitive information on a daily basis. We have layers of security in place to ensure confidentiality when transferring and storing business documents.
Layer 1: As a ShareFile user, the first layer of security is in regard to accessing your account. Each user of the system has a unique login and password. All user passwords are hashed in the ShareFile database, meaning that not even the ShareFile support personnel have the ability to view or in any way determine a user’s password. To access your sensitive documents, you are prompted to sign into your account with your email and password. This serves to protect your information from unauthorized users.
Layer 2: The second layer of security is default privacy settings. By default, your files are only accessible if you choose to share them with others. When ShareFile users create folders in the system, only the specified users that are designated by owner of the folder are able to access the contents of those folders. Users who do not have access to the folder will not even see the folder in their view of the system. So, you can rest assured knowing that your information is kept confidential.
In a survey just released, the use of could computing services have increased significantly in the past year with multinational corporations. The report, published by Ovum, states that 45% of multinational corporations have adopted cloud computing services, compared to 28% in last year’s survey. Most interestingly, cloud computing adoption was especially high with companies based in Asia/Pacific. Take a look at the article here.
In a separate study by IBM, 60% of international organizations are ready to move forward with cloud computing over the next five years as a way to increase their business and gain an edge over their competitors. This percentage is double the percentage that the survey got in their 2009 study showing that cloud computing is clearly on the rise as organizations continue to grow and become more international. More information on this study can be found here.
Following recent attacks on major corporations, including the breach of Sony’s PlayStation system, the Obama administration has submitted a proposal to Congress for new cybersecurity legislation for companies. The announcement of this proposal highlights a renewed focus for the White House on computer and data security as a matter of national and financial stability, although there are still many questions as to how any laws regarding corporate network security could be written or implemented.
