Off Camus access to file storage

Drake University uses Xythos for this purpose. Both department shares and personal drive data can be accessed off campus using any web browser. It has worked extremely well and has been well received. Xythos also has another application that works in conjunction with their offering called ‘Xythos Drive’ that we use. Xythos Drive allows the Windows and Mac clients to portray this space as a local drive so it appears as if the data is local to their workstation.

The Xythos solution is a great example of a private cloud. We manage this data on-site and we feel better about that versus having sensitive data being hosted somewhere else.

Hope that helps!

Jeff

Jeffrey D. Sabin

DIRECTOR, COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORK SERVICES

Drake University

The Dial Center

2507 University Avenue    Des Moines, Iowa 50311-4505

Tel  515.271.2935

Fax 515.271.1938

1.800.44.DRAKE x2935

E-mail jeff.sabin@drake.edu

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

We use SharePoint for this purpose, for controlled and information protected documents, and files. Not exactly a “synch”, like DropBox, etc., but, on windows machines, can be mapped to a “shortcut” off campus, and, for Macs, etc., can be accessed via a browser (the URL of which, can also be a “shortcut”, homepage tab, etc.).

If you already have a robust SharePoint infrastructure (read: oodles of server / file space) this is a very quick, easy to deploy option, that plays nice, i.e., natively, with Active Directory.

One advantage, or disadvantage, depending on one’s vantage, is that department leads can manage the technical permissions of who has access to what. Again, can be good or bad depending on where one sits on the usability vs. control spectrum.

Sincerely,

Scott Helf, DO, MSIT

Chief Technology Officer

Assistant Dean, Academic Informatics

College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific

Western University of Health Sciences

309 East 2nd Street

Pomona, CA  91766

909-781-4353

shelf@westernu.edu

www.westernu.edu

-sch

Ø  Xythos also has another application that works in conjunction with their offering called ‘Xythos Drive’ that we use. Xythos Drive allows the Windows and Mac clients to portray this space as a local drive so it appears as if the data is local to their workstation.

This has been a great thread.

It’s been my observation and opinion through the years that any solution that doesn’t portray the space as a local drive is so cumbersome to use as not really to be a solution. Well, a solution does not necessarily have to portray the space as a local drive, but I think it needs to expose the space to the File dialog of any program – File->Open, File->Save, File->Save As… etc. Many solutions require the user to File->Save As… to a real local drive and then to move the file to the network storage as a separate operation (and vice versa for File->Open).

Another piece of this puzzle that’s becoming important is to make network file space available to mobile devices. For example, I can presently view any of my personal Dropbox files on my iPhone and iPad. Dropbox is much more of a consumer product that an enterprise product, and I can only view files on my iPhone and my iPad rather than being able to edit them. But nevertheless, the Dropbox mobile app is a step in the right direction.

Finally, we are beginning to use Citrix in part to provide off campus access to our on campus file storage. Which is to say, the virtual Citrix environment to which a user logs in connects them to their campus network file storage. Citrix obviously does many other things, and the ability to provide off campus access to our on campus file storage is really just icing on the cake. But it’s really nice icing.

Jerry

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Jerry Bryan • Vice President of Information Services • Pellissippi State • 10915 Hardin Valley Road • P.O. Box 22990 • Knoxville, TN 37933-0990

Voice: 865 539-7127 •  Fax: 865 539-7653 •  E-mail: jbryan@pstcc.edu

We are a virtual campus and provide virtual desktop pool access to our faculty and staff via vdesk.  This in addition to the requiring they use two factor authentication   via RAS FOB’s.

Joe

Norwich University

We are looking at a product called HTTPCommander.  We’ve been favorably impressed in our testing of the product.  The development team at Element IT has been very responsive to questions we’ve had during the process.

Steve Fowler

Systems Manager

Technology Support Services

Oregon State University