Managed File Transfer (MFT) companies are kicking off 2012 by positioning their products in the enterprise File Synchronization and Share (FSS) market. Their positioning is based on an organic growth and adoption trend of consumer-FSS by small, medium and large enterprises and organizations.
Consumer-FSS exposes content control and audit requirements which drive the adoption of enterprise-FSS. For IT to truly maintain control, identifying and deploying an enterprise-FSS means purchasing an on-premises solution. This keeps corporate IT, not a third party, responsible for the security and compliance of corporate data.
But for an ultimate win, corporate IT should look beyond a simple FSS solution that solves only one, immediate need, and instead look for a platform that can meet the FSS need, while also offering added benefits to IT.
FSS is a bootstrap application developed by vendors targeting consumer adoption of cloud storage. Vendors with success in the consumer space are leveraging unmanaged adoption of FSS by expanding their products as development platforms. This activity is exemplified by consumer-FSS vendors adding innovation networks and developer kits within the last 12 months.
And MFT vendors who have traditionally been in the enterprise space are trying to reinvent their solutions to take advantage of the FSS bubble. Because adoption of FSS solutions are occurring so quickly – IT is often reacting to the immediate security problem of storing confidential data on public clouds at the expense of also investigating a longer term solution – a platform that provides both FSS and mobile first application development.
Jeff Moore, Database Administrator at Austin Convention Center, has been developing mobile applications using FileMaker Go and FileMaker. In a recent interview series, Mr. Moore said “our current architecture performs a one way synch between FileMaker databases.”
One database is behind a firewall, the other is in a perimeter zone for the Center maintenance staff. Mr. Moore said “our current infrastructure meets our immediate business goal, but at some point we need to step back and stop the tail from wagging the dog.” Mr. Moore suggested they could synchronize to FileMaker or any other target, provided he can meet his business goals. Mr. Moore and his team are evaluating cloud storage technologies.
Organizations like Austin Convention Center who expand their requirements will discover the lowest cost infrastructure is NOT a managed file transfer product, but is instead a storage cloud product. Minimum requirements for an enterprise storage cloud product should be:
- Secure FSS – add security to the hottest user application driving storage clouds.
- Scalable and flexible – can be a target for multiple secure data sources, provisions and manages any available hardware, but does not reflect negative infrastructures changes to applications as they grow.
- Expand uses for storage clouds – use APIs to enable disaster recovery through cloud-based backups and archiving.
- Private, Public and Hybrid – accessible to the public network AND secure behind firewalls.
A clear solution that meets the requirements above is the MezeoCloud and MezeoFile combination from Mezeo Software. Mezeo is a leading storage cloud vendor for mobile application development shipping a FSS bundle. The MezeoCloud product provides the storage services layer for cloud scale applications.
MezeoFile is a bundled set of File Sync and Share clients for enterprises and service providers. The MezeoFile access clients can be white labeled, carrying a corporate brand. The clients are available in IOS, Android, Desktop, and Web browser offerings. In addition, Mezeo offers multiple APIs for mobile application development and storage infrastructure management. MezeoCloud also provides a WebDAV access capability.
A storage cloud can offer an enterprise enhanced application integration beyond FSS. Mezeo has integrated backup and archiving offerings with vendors like CommVault. If you choose to host a portion of your offering behind your corporate firewall, you can also choose to use a Mezeo Ready Cloud at a hosting provider.
It is clear; companies who purchase Consumer-FSS can expand their use of FSS infrastructure to mobile-first application development. Therefore, companies who require an on-premises solution must choose an offering that delivers on Enterprise File Share and Sync (FSS) AND a mobile-first application development platform like the offering from Mezeo.