Correcting the Collaboration Conundrum
To simplify their jobs, a growing number of employees circumvent IT and go directly to cloud-based tools to share documents, images, and other private business information.
This can create security, backup, e-discovery, and compliance concerns if the tool has inadequate protection, loses data, or does not meet corporate or industry regulations or requirements. But people are accustomed to using these solutions in their personal lives and want to use them at work, said Steve Luong, senior product marketing manager at CommVault Systems, in an interview.
"As there are more data breaches, as there are security breaches and compliance issues, people are realizing this is a line of business issue. IT and executives at the c-level are definitely beginning to realize the risks that are involved and trying to regain control and visibility into the situation," he said.
The file synchronization and sharing (FSS) market will grow to $2.3 billion by 2018, according to IDC. Fifty percent of executives polled by Dropbox say they use online sync.
When IT departments know about installations of Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, and other cloud-based file sharing services, they can implement backup and security systems that protect users' preferred tools, Luong said. But when these implementations float below IT's radar, end-users may ignore these needs.
Smaller companies or departments might take a different approach, standardizing on a collaboration solution for their workgroup. That's the tack creative brand agency CBX was forced to take after employees clamored for a Dropbox-like capability and the company's virtual private network was inundated with huge graphic files, Thom Unterburger, director of technology at CBX, told Enterprise Technology.
Because CBX works on clients' brands about two years before they launch, security is key and using something like Dropbox would violate non-disclosure agreements, he said. Sharing files via email was untenable; huge PhotoShop images bogged down the network, but CBX needed a solution that worked both internally and for its printing partners around the world, Unterburger said.
As an alternative CBX implemented AeroFS' private cloud solution that lives behind the firewall and is available free for up to 30 users, he said. AeroFS encrypts data end-to-end so the intended recipient is the only individual who can read it, said Yuri Sagalov, AeroFS CEO, in an interview.
"One of the things that happens in this vertical is big files, big files that can't be emailed no matter how hard people try. That's a big problem that is solved by AeroFS by link generation," said Unterburger. "It's so easy to explain to any user of any level. It kills email attachments and it'll make your life so much faster. If you're on Wi-Fi you won't have to wait for that file to upload."
It can, however, be difficult to mandate the use of a particular FSS solution, especially at big enterprises with complex IT infrastructures, said CommVault's Luong. The company developed the Endpoint Data Protection Solution Set to secure FSS environments.
"A lot of policies don't necessarily translate down in large corporations," he said.
