Posts from ‘Sendable’
How Would You Send Large Files?
Great question asked by Wayne Hemrick at ArticleSnatch. In his answer to “How would you send large files in an ideal world?”,Wayne touches on a few very important considerations when thinking about person-to-person file sharing, including: ease-of-use, large file size, and security.
I agree that the ability to easily send ginormous files is only part of the problem that a business should be looking to solve. It’s no secret that people need to send other people files as part of their jobs. In many cases, these files contain information that is sensitive and confidential. In my opinion, the real issue is that business users lack a way to ensure the security of these information exchanges.
Wayne correctly points out that many of the currently used tools are insecure, inefficient, complicated and some even require the intervention of IT professionals. But the growing risk of privacy loss and data breaches has made the security aspect of sending files a top concern. Organizations need to demonstrate to their customers that they understand this and are taking steps to address it.
Businesses require a simple file sharing solution that:
- Enables employees to easily send files (any size, any type) to other people
- Lowers company risk by securing and protecting internal and customer information
- Provides visibility into what happens after file is sent for auditing and compliance
The ideal solution must provide for guaranteed and trackable file delivery that your business can rely on.
More than any other question, customers and prospects are asking me: What is the Ipswitch Cloud story? What are you going to do in the Cloud?
The Cloud has been the topic of discussion in many Product Management and Research & Development meetings and strategy sessions here at Ipswitch. While we may not have all the details sorted out, I want to provide you with a my initial thoughts…and I’d like to encourage you to provide feedback.
Ipswitch looks at the Cloud as having multiple personae. That is, to say, it represents various “things” to us.
In one sense, it’s a destination. When I use a Cloud-based service, my destination is the Cloud and there are attributes about this destination that are pre-configurable, predictable, and static, as far as connectivity goes. The notion of a set of Cloud Streams offered by Ipswitch is a real possibility. With over 10 million active users, we could offer pre-configured, governed connections to common Cloud-based SaaS providers like Salesforce.com or Office 365.
In another sense, the Cloud represents a way to broker information to some other endpoint that may be cloud-based or on-premise. Our Sendable offering is just that. We broker the interactions between people and systems. Brokering includes adding layers of visibility, management, and enforcement. In this case, it’s important to offer multiple ways of connecting and multiple ways of provisioning, from ad-hoc to more formalized adapters and interfaces.
Finally, we look at the Cloud as being half of any domain-to-domain exchange of information, whether it’s people-to-people, system-to-system, application-to-application, or business-to-business. Companies of any size need to seriously consider a hybrid approach to MFT, B2B, and EAI overall.
“Pimpin’ ain’t easy, and neither is recovering from cybercrime.”
Simon McCormack of The Huffington Post
Forget that whole ‘East Coast vs West Coast’ rap hostility. There’s a shared enemy out there that is bringing the two coasts together.
What could be so horrible that it unites East and West? What is it that’s so vile that its banding together the entire rap community?
No, Heidi Montag is not coming out with a rap album, it’s not THAT bad. It’s cybercrime.
In Simon McCormack’s article on Huffingtonpost.com, we learn that The Doggfather has “had to deal with Internet miscreants who have set up fake websites using his name, stolen his music and swiped his credit card information.”
Snoop Dogg is all about fighting cybercrime now, and he says “I don’t tolerate it. I’m not with it.”
It’s more than just lip service, if you check out Geekosystem.com, Robert Quigley’s article takes us deeper inside Uncle Snoop’s plans to fight cybercrime and shows us that Tha Boss Dog is involved in a contest called “Hack Is Wack” to spread awareness on cybercrime. Quigley explains that “Hack Is Wack is a Norton-sponsored, Snoop Dogg-approved competition wherein contestants submit an ‘anti-cybercrime rap video’ two minutes in length or shorter.”
Just last month, Ipswitch’s own Frank Kenney extended his hand to help the rap community with it’s battle against cybercrime, specifically the fight against email hackers with an “open invitation to any of the hip-hop superstars such as Diddy, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, Eminem, Eve, Lil Kim, 50 Cent, or Lil Wayne” to use Ipswitch’s Sendable. This is where you can send any type of file up to 15 GB in size, and we will guarantee that it gets there, securely, and is fully auditable.
Frank extends his hand even further and says that “if you’re an aspiring rapper, go to Sendable.com and sign up for free account. Let us know how you like it, how we can make it better, and we’ll will work at getting you the features that you want and recommend. We may even have some free accounts for you if your music is all that!”
I’d like to keep Frank’s generous offer alive, and if you’re looking to submit a video to “Hack Is Wack“, then Sendable is the way to go!
I’ve been asked at least a dozen times over the last month “What are the benefits of a cloud-based hosted subscription versus an on-premises software deployment?”.
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” ~ Hamlet
There are many benefits of going SaaS, just like there are benefits of deploying on-premises. It all comes down to the problems you are trying to solve, budgeting preferences, and IT resource availability and expertise. Here are some benefits of going the hosted route.
- Fast and easy deployment: SaaS solutions are often available instantly, providing an amazingly fast time-to-value. You don’t need to install any software/hardware yourself and there are no complicated firewall or security configurations to work through.
- Budgeting flexibility & lower up front cost: Hosted subscriptions are treated as an “operating expense” with no capital investment spent on software/hardware. Pay-as-you-go subscription plans often lead to quicker purchase decisions because there is no need to get CapEx budget sign-off.
- Less taxing on your IT resources: SaaS solutions require significantly less effort to deploy and maintain. There are no ongoing software upgrades, patches or backups for you to worry about, and no complex security/compliance configurations to be responsible for internally. Plus, there is no underlying infrastructure to assemble and maintain.
- Built-in scalability: The elasticity and high bandwidth of SaaS solutions easily handles spikes in usage and grows as organizational needs expand.
- Near perfect uptime: Hosted services are often run in a highly available, load-balanced, automatic failover configuration to ensure even the strictest network and application uptime requirements and SLAs are met.
I’d like to also quickly mention that we’ve had numerous customers initially deploy our MOVEit DMZ Hosted Service as a way to get their Managed File Transfer solution up and running quickly, while they continue to work towards an on-premises deployment.
The growth of SaaS can’t be denied…. The question is, whether ’tis SaaS right for your organization?
