Posts from ‘Management’
In our recent webinar “File sharing: Have employee habits put your company at risk?”, Michael Osterman of Osterman Research and David Boone of Ipswitch File Transfer spoke about the issues associated with trends in individual file sharing and the impact they have on businesses.
There is continued increased usage of rogue tools to share files and information when employees don’t have an adequate solution provided to them by their business. These tools include everything from personal email accounts (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!) to cloud-based personal file sharing tools (YouSendIt, DropBox) all the way through to USB drives or what David refers to as “SneakerNet” — walking private data around the office on USB drives which can be easily misplaced or lost.
Michael and David also take a look at what information technology teams can do to deliver solutions to businesses that will address these risks, and tips on how to balance the need for end-user simplicity with the control, security and visibility required by the organization.
- Watch the on-demand webinar recording
Lastly they cover five key criteria to consider when selecting a business-class file sharing solution for your organization:
- Make sure it can handle unlimited file sizes.
- Confirm that minimal training is required to deploy it.
- Ensure it is secure. This includes utilizing encryption both in motion and at rest, and that the message itself is encrypted too.
- For successful user adoption, make sure it’s easy to use.
- Finally, make sure it’s easy to integrate into your existing environment.
For the full discussion between Michael and David as well as the question-and-answer session with the audience, we invite you to view the webinar recording. We also invite you to share this with any colleagues who you think may find it useful.
What are the benefits, the risks, the consequences, and the alternatives to the proliferation of personal file transfer and file sharing tools?
Consumer-grade solutions such as Dropbox, webmail and USB drives being rapidly adopted in the workplace. The question is — are they right for you and your organization?
Next Wednesday, on April 25th, you’re invited to join industry experts Michael Osterman and Ipswitch’s David Boone in a 29-minute rapid-fire discussion where we will address:
- Typical Tools – What are the products employees are bringing with them to work?
- What are the risks of relying on personal file sharing tools in the workplace?
- How can I balance the need of the individual with the requirements of the organization?
- Top 3 things to look for in an easy-to-use and governed business-class file sharing solution?
If you manage an IT environment where these tools are pervasively used by employees to send company information, then you’re encouraged to participate in what should be a very opinionated discussion. Bring your questions. Challenge the experts. Learn how to regain control. And enjoy the conversation. Register now.
P.S. – if you are unable to attend the live event, please register anyways and we’ll email you a link to the archived recording for playback on-demand, as your schedule permits.
Let’s start to examine the impact of end-to-end visibility and ways it can be put to work for your organization. For starters, let’s dig into correlation.
Correlation involves identifying related actions and events as a file moves through a series of business processes (including what happens after a file is moved, renamed, or deleted), and using that information to make business decisions. Correlation can also associate file transfer metadata with downstream processes such as whether a product was shipped or an invoice was paid after an order was received from a customer.
Ipswitch’s Frank Kenney shares some thoughts in the video below on why correlation is an especially important part of visibility and how it enables you to really understand not only file transfers, but also the applications, processes, purchase orders and other items in your infrastructure that tie back to customers, SLA’s and revenue..
Correlation enables users to easily view all the events related to the transfer and consumption of a single file or set of files, including subsequent applications and resulting business processes. For example, they can track a file through a complete workflow and throughout its entire lifecycle, even if it was shared with a customer or business partner – critical insight that can impact the quality and timeliness of work, service level agreements, not to mention revenue and profitability.
Information flows into, within and out of organizations faster and in greater volumes than ever before. Complicating matters is the growing number of vendor systems, applications and platforms that make up your company’s business infrastructure and touch even your most sensitive and mission-critical information.
If you don’t have visibility into the data and files that are flowing between systems, applications and people — both inside and beyond the company firewall — things can go haywire very quickly.
- Lost files, security breaches and compliance violations
- Broken SLAs and other processes that are dependent on files
- No file lifecycle tracking as data flows between applications, systems and people
- Damaged partner and customer relationships
- Lost opportunities
Relying on the reporting capabilities of each individual system has proven to be risky and inefficient. Chances are, you’re swimming in a sea of not-very-useful-or-actionable data and static reports that are already a week behind with what’s actually happening in your company this very instant.
In today’s blog video, Frank Kenney shares his thoughts why having one consolidated view is critical and why organizations are having such a hard time achieving visibility.
When it comes to your file transfers, many questions exist. Do you have the total visibility your business requires? How do your customers gain visibility into their file transfers?? Do you have all the information you need to meet your service level agreements (SLAs) as well as enabling transparency about integration and file transfers??? Let Ipswitch help you answer these questions and overcome your visibility challenges.
You’re going to be hearing more and more about “VISIBILITY” from Ipswitch, so I’d like to quickly start this blog post with our definition of visibility in the context of files and data flowing into, within and out of your company:
Visibility: “Unobstructed vision into all data interactions, including files, events, people, policies and processes”
Fast, easy access to critical file and data transfer information is a must-have – it’s critical to the success of your business. Whether it’s tracking and reporting on SLAs, analyzing file transfer metrics to identify bottlenecks and improve efficiency, or providing customers and partners with easy self-service access to the file transfer information they require – as well as countless other business objectives – unobstructed visibility is imperative.
Having one consolidated view into all of the systems and processes involved in your organizations file and data transfers will deliver tremendous business value and a competitive edge. Please do take a couple of minutes to watch Ipswitch’s Frank Kenney share his perspective on why visibility is important.
