"What's a Google Drive?"
I
was having lunch recently with an attorney friend of mine and wanted to
share a document with him. Since he already had Gmail, I suggested we
just share it on Google Drive as it wasn’t sensitive data...turned out
he'd never even heard of Google Drive.
Yeah, really.
This
made me really think about consumers of all these mobile devices we use
in our work. My friend's job is to be a really good lawyer, and that
takes a lot of time and brain power. And as tech savvy as he is (he did
his firm's web site), being on top of every bit of tech just isn’t his
job. It's the job of IT thinkers like me.
Cloud Computing for Lawyers and the Like
It was fortuitous synchronicity that I’d just looked at the Egnyte system. So many companies have been hesitant to adopt some sort of cloud file sharing platform due to data security concerns.
Egnyte is a hybrid approach that enables large companies to keep their
files on premise behind their own firewall but leverage the cloud for
access.
So as I was talking to my friend,
he was telling me how he needs to be able to work on the same documents
with paralegals and other lawyers in the firm. He explained how they are
often sitting around court with their iPad, waiting to get their time
before the judge, and how easy it would be to get to those files.
As
I explained cloud based file sharing to him, he expressed his concern
about the security of the files, as this was often very sensitive
information as they were putting a case together. So I explained Egnytes
concept of “Data Gravity”, and how you can actually keep those files securely in house and not on the cloud, subject to indexing and security breaches.
He
was getting really excited about the possibilities for his firm to be
able to securely collaborate and work on files wherever he was and with
whatever device he had with him. Oftentimes he would even just be out at
some social event with only his phone and something came up he wanted
to get in to a document, only to have it at work and not available, so
he’d make notes and then merge them up at work later.
Secure Hybrid Computing with a Toaster
Hot on the heels of the announcement of their $29.8 Million “D” round funding, Egnyte has inked a new partnership
with Synology. Who is Synology and why is this important you might ask?
I wondered, too, so I asked Egnyte co-founder Rajesh Ram some
questions.
Founded
in 2000, Synology is dedicated to develop high-performance,
environmentally-friendly NAS servers. You have these cool toaster size
devices that cost from $300 to $2000 and store from 1tb to 4tb per box
that gives you really simple and convenient network storage for SMB or
home (the home market is not Egnytes focus however). These
devices get you efficient storage for groups of users, allowing you to
share files securely, back them up, do printer sharing, mobile support
and all sorts of cool features.
Shawn Gordon: What is the effect on the existing infrastructure and clients?
Rajesh Ram:
Egnyte will sit on the Synology device and sync to the Egnyte cloud and
provide that same seemless access to files from whatever device you are
using. The convenience and management factors are that you can now
just have Egnyte sitting on the Synology NAS device and not have to
install it on every desktop computer in the company. In addition you
have a granular security matrix to the files on the NAS, so I can say
Sally has full read/write access to the Accounting folder but only read
access to Sales Quotes, but Bob has full read/write access to both, etc.
SG: What is the sales, distribution, cost model for this? Am I going to buy a Synology device from Egnyte?
RR:
For the moment it will typically deploy to an existing Synology
customer, we’ll just install our software to their already in-house
device. A new customer would acquire the Synology device through one of
their resellers, we won’t be reselling the device ourselves. There is
no additional cost above and beyond your typical cost for the device and
our service.
SG: What is this bringing to the party?
RR:
Really it is a matter of convenience in terms of deployment and use.
There is very little effort to deploy this solution and the benefit is
tremendous in terms of security and accessibility. Remember, we’re
keeping your files in place, we aren’t making you put them up in the
cloud unless you want to. This really reduces any potential incursion to
your data, and with the recent announcements of breaches at Target and
Snapchat, we can’t be too careful with regard to data security.
SG: What is the effect on the existing customer base?
RR:
No impact whatsoever, it just opens up additional storage solution
option, and on the Synology end, gives them easy access to the Egnyte
system.
SG: When does this go live?
RR:
We’re announcing here at CES and are sharing a booth with Synology as
well. We’ll have the solution shipping in the first quarter of 2014.
And
with that Rajesh was back to CES. Storage may not be particularly
glamorous, but it is what makes everything happen. As a long time IT guy
myself, I’m really excited about anything that makes it easier to
secure and share my data in as controlled a fashion as possible, and in
that vein, this is a very exciting solution that addresses a huge need
in the SMB space.
Article : http://smartdatacollective.com/socialmktgfella/177416/now-lawyers-can-use-cloud-too
