Taming the Mobile File Sharing Beast

1. White Paper
File and Networking Services
Taming the Mobile
File Sharing Beast
To Whom Should You Entrust the Enterprise Goods?
Mobile file access and sharing is not only the rage, but it’s
fast becoming a workforce necessity. If you don’t provide
your users a secure, viable option for getting and sharing
files on the move, they’ll take matters into their own hands.
And you know how that generally ends: with enterprise
data being stored in consumer-grade cloud services.
If you’re already a step ahead of that curve—and looking
at more enterprise-friendly mobile file access and sharing
solutions—be aware that many lack the security you need,
stifle user productivity and create additional work for
IT teams that are already stretched far too thinly.

2. File and Networking Services White Paper
Taming the Mobile File Sharing Beast
Assessing the Different Classes
of Mobile File Access Offerings
Mobile file access and sharing is not only the rage, but it’s
fast becoming a workforce necessity. If you don’t provide
your users a secure, viable option for getting and sharing
files on the move, you’d better believe they’ll take matters
into their own hands.
In fact, in a June 2012 study conducted
by SkyDox, sixty-six percent of the 4,000
employees surveyed admitted to using
free file-sharing platforms to share
corporate documents—55 percent
of them without the knowledge of
their IT departments.
The productivity gains and time savings they
receive from anywhere, anytime file access
are more than enough incentive for users
to ignore the risks associated with putting
enterprise data in consumer-oriented cloud
offerings. But IT can’t afford to ignore those
risks. You may be deadly scared about what
your mobile users are doing with those valu­
able digital assets. But as always, you have
to strike the right balance between corporate
governance and user needs.
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Maybe you’re already looking at mobile
file access and sharing solutions that
seem to be more enterprise-friendly. If so,
that’s great. But be aware that among the
different classes of solutions out there,
many lack the security you need, stifle user
productivity and create additional work
for IT teams that are already stretched
far too thinly.
Consumer-grade Cloud Services
Organizations that let users drive the
mobile file access agenda discover that
their users select consumer-grade cloud
services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and
SkyDrive. These services make it easy for
users to sign up and start using the service
right away. But the focus of these services
is usability for the masses, not security for
the enterprise, leading to headlines news
on security lapses and outages.
Not only do these services lack the
authen­ication controls and enterprise-class
t
s
­ ecurity you’ve established within your own
infrastructure, but they leave you out of the
governance loop. You have little control,
if any, over what files users can store in—
and share from—these services. And what
happens to the corporate files in an individual’s cloud storage account if the user quits
or gets laid off? In all cases, consumergrade cloud storage services usurp your
ability to protect your intellectual property
and prevent data leakage. Your job in IT
is to get ahead of the end user curve by
providing a better alternative.

3. Enterprise-targeted Cloud Services
In an attempt to fill the security void left by
consumer-oriented cloud services, other
cloud services have surfaced with a focus
on meeting the needs of the enterprise.
These services tout enterprise-class security and control, giving IT administrators the
ability to manage access rights and authentication policies. This offer of enterprisegrade security and IT control has its appeal,
especially when coupled with the promise
that it will free you of the burden of hosting
and managing that storage infrastructure.
Perhaps it seems like the perfect solution
to securely address your mobile users’ file
access and sharing needs. Not so fast.
So-called enterprise-grade cloud storage
services have three main failings.
Duplication of Management Effort
The first failing of enterprise-targeted cloud
services for mobile file access is duplication
of management effort. You’ve likely spent
several years establishing and fine-tuning
the security controls and access privileges
for your enterprise data. These solutions
invite you to tackle that arduous process all
over again, but this time using their security
tools instead of the ones you already know
and trust. You also earn the ongoing opportunity to manage security for your existing
in-house data infrastructure and this new
hosted infrastructure separately.
Empty Data Repositories
The second, and perhaps the most
important and often overlooked, failing of
enterprise cloud services for mobile users
relates to the challenge of migrating data
from your enterprise infrastructure to the
www.novell.com
cloud. You need to take a realistic look at
how many weeks and months of effort it
will take to move all those files to your new
cloud storage. Do you move all of them?
Some of them? Is it a complete move or
just a copy, leaving you with duplicate data?
How will you know which files your users
really need or want in the cloud?
The reality is that IT usually leaves it to the
users to decide. And, in a way, that makes
sense. However, with the burden now on
the user, you have no guarantee that they’ll
even take advantage of this new service
you’ve invested in. When the choice is
between the consumer solution where
they’ve already stored their files or the new
enterprise service that remains an empty
repository until they get around to copying
or moving content, the result usually doesn’t
favor policy and control.
File Duplication and Version Control
When you’re copying files from your enterprise repository to a hosted cloud service,
you’re likely to end up with file duplication
and version control issues. Users might not
always remember or know which files have
been moved to the cloud. One day they
work on a version in the cloud, and then
a week or two later they make changes
to the version stored on the enterprise file
server. This becomes even more likely—
and troublesome—with shared files, where
different users work on different versions
stored in various repositories. Some socalled enterprise cloud services do include
auditing tools to address version control
problems, but they’re only effective if you
do a complete migration of your files.
Hybrid Cloud/On-premise Solutions
To address some of the deficiencies
evident in enterprise-targeted cloud services, a few vendors have started offering
a hybrid service for mobile file access and
sharing. While their focus is to move most
of your files to the cloud, these hybrid
services allow organizations to store some
of their files in the provider’s cloud service
and others in the organization’s on-premise
data centers.
By empowering organizations to leverage
their own data center infrastructure for
mobile file access and sharing, these
h
­ ybrid solutions definitely take a step in
the right direction. On-premise storage, ­
after all, not only gives organizations
greater control and oversight over their
data, it helps them meet regulatory
and compliance requirements, as well.
Unfor­unately, these hybrid solutions
t
share many of the same failings of the
enterprise-targeted cloud services.
Allocation of New and Separate Storage
Even though hybrid services allow organizations to leverage their on-premise data
center and equipment, the organizations
still have to allocate new and separate
s
­ torage space for housing the mobile
data. Obviously, the movement of data
from an old on-premise data store to a
new on-premise data store won’t be as
monumental as moving all those terabytes
across the Internet. But you still have the
questions related to what files get moved,
who moves them, and how to deal with
potential duplication of data.
3

4. File and Networking Services White Paper
Taming the Mobile File Sharing Beast
Lack of Real Integration with
Existing File System
The bigger problem is that even if your
mobile data stays on-premise, your mobile
file shares are not really integrated with your
other existing file shares. Some hybrid solu­
tions offer a level of integration with Active
Directory, but you’re still dealing with a new
file system. Once again, you face the significant effort of recreating and reconfiguring
all of your established file access controls
for the data moved into that new system.
On-premise, File System-integrated
Solutions
Rather than managing a single file system
infrastructure, you now have to manage
two separate infrastructures. And, as with
the enterprise cloud services, managing
your hybrid solution will also require you to
use a separate set of management utilities.
Leverage Existing Files, File Systems,
Processes and Controls
Whether in the cloud or on-premise,
users don’t need yet another set of files
or another repository for accessing data
on the move. They just need to be able
to access and share their existing files
from where they’re already stored. And IT
doesn’t need or want another file system to
manage, let alone have to use completely
new tools to manage it. They just need to
mobilize their existing file systems in a way
that utilizes the security infrastructure, file
access controls and data management
processes in which they’ve already invested.
Investment in Additional Data
Management Processes
These hybrid services add complexity to
your environment. Since they’re not really
leveraging your existing file service, they’re
also not leveraging all the existing proces­
ses you have in place for managing your
data. For example, how will you back up
these new mobile repositories? How much
effort will it require to rework your existing
backup services to encompass the new
data stores? Will you have to invest in and
roll out new backup services? What other
workflows and services will you have to
reconfigure to accommodate a hybrid
m
­ obile file access and sharing solution?
4
In the attempt to create greater mobile
p
­ roductivity, all the services and solutions
described thus far put organizations at
greater risk, create more management complexity, fail to meet users’ needs or create a
combination of all these problems. The best
way to avoid these mobile file access and
sharing “gotchas” is to leverage a solution
that simply allows organizations to use the
files and file systems they already have.
­
Secure, Collaborative Sharing and More
Even with an on-premise, file system-integrated offering, you still need to verify that
it delivers all the functionality your users
need. In addition to intuitive mobile file
access, does it provide secure mobile file
sharing? Do the controls for file sharing and
mobile downloads provide the granularity
needed to comply with your enterprise
standards and policies? Does the solution
enable mobile users to easily and quickly
search across all their authorized file shares
to find the content they need? Does it offer
inherent collaborative capabilities for shared
files, or do users still have to resort to email
or other forms of communication to provide
context for the files they’ve shared?
Only Novell® Filr delivers on all those counts,
giving you the on-premise, complete file
system integration you need and the mobile
file access and collaborative sharing your
users demand.
Secure, Easy Mobile File Access
and Sharing
Novell Filr gives users easy, anywhere,
any device access to corporate files, while
keeping the process completely under IT
control. It delivers the mobile file access
and collaborative file sharing users want,
but through an enterprise-ready design that
leverages your existing infra­ tructure and
s
established controls. It eliminates the need
to manage third-party services or create and
manage hybrid file stores by allowing you
to use your existing file servers, existing
files and existing file system rights.
Whether in the cloud or on-premise, other
mobile file access vendors make plenty of
promises, but they can’t stack up to the
properly balanced approach of Novell Filr,
which delivers all of the following:

5. Use of and adherence to established user
access controls and quotas, so the same
group and user access rights that govern
your organization’s home and network
folders also govern mobile access
Seamless integration with users’ existing
­
folders, including home directories and
network shares, giving users secure
mobile access to all of their enterprise
content on day one
Utilization of users’ real credentials for
file access, ensuring authorized access
and audit trail support
Secure and managed connection
between existing file servers and your
endpoints, including Windows, Mac,
iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices,
as well as standard web browsers
Non-intrusive and easy-to-install virtual
machine with no need to deploy server
agents, extend your schema, or invest
in new data center hardware
www.novell.com
Support for multiple identity stores,
i
­ncluding Microsoft Active Directory
and NetIQ® eDirectory™
Native file system integration with
Microsoft Windows Server and Novell
Open Enterprise Server (CIFS and NCP)
No file migration or duplication since files
remain on existing enterprise file servers
Easy-to-use, follow-me file synchronization
Granular control over mobile file downloads
Granular control over file sharing, including
the ability to determine which files and
folders users can share either internally
or externally
Keep IT in Control and Mobile
Users Happy
administration, better security and happier
employees. It allows you to leverage your
established security and data protection
measures, while empowering users to
e
­ njoy the easy, anywhere, any device file
access they demand. The bottom line is
that users get what they want, while you
stay in control of your organization’s filebased intellectual property.
To learn more about how your users can
enjoy the productivity gains and time savings of mobile file access and collaborative
sharing without compromising enterprise
goals, visit www.novell.com/filr or contact
Novell at 888 321 4272.
Unlike other mobile file access and colla­
borative file sharing solutions, Novell Filr
has been designed with both the enterprise
and the user in mind, resulting in less
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6. Contact your local Novell Solutions
Provider, or call Novell at:
1 800 714 3400 U.S./Canada
1 801 861 1349 Worldwide
Novell, Inc.
1800 South Novell Place
Provo, UT 84606 USA
www.novell.com
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