The cloud age is upon us. And as IT leaders, you’re tasked with determining how you can use the cloud to help your organization achieve greater business outcomes, better serve your users, and remain compliant. But when it comes to deciding how — or even if — to use the cloud to store your data, there answer isn’t always simple.
Each organization has unique needs and requirements, and should have the freedom to choose whichever storage solution works best — whether it’s on premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid model.
When choosing a solution, here are some things to consider.
Weighing on-premises, cloud, and hybrid options
You may have strict compliance or regulatory mandates that require you to keep your data on premises. If so, it’s also likely that you have high security requirements. ShareFile, an enterprise-grade file-sharing and content collaboration platform, allows you to choose where you store you data with StorageZones, as well as configure the level of security you need.
For organizations that want flexibility and a quick setup, a fully cloud solution may work best. ShareFile allows your workforce to conveniently share, sync, and store data through secure in-cloud storage. With this cloud solution, you can scale storage up or down depending on your needs.
The hybrid cloud storage model fits best for companies that want to use the cloud to save on storage and maintenance costs, while also having on-premises data centers to uphold regional compliance policies. It’s cost-effective and the most customizable solution for your business.
ShareFile can also help guide you as your organization shifts to meet the needs of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). No matter where data is stored, global companies need to be aware of GDPR compliance. To learn how ShareFile can help you get ready for GDPR, read our blog post.
User experience is key to productivity
When data is scattered across multiple places, like hard drives, clouds, network drives, SharePoint, personal cloud connectors, and other solutions like OneDrive or Documentum, it’s important to think about what kind of experience this creates for your users. Employees have to toggle back and forth to different systems, with different credentials, to access all their files. This not only has the potential to slow down productivity but can also lead to shadow IT.
At ShareFile, our customers tell us how important it is for their users to have a simple, easy experience to access what they need to get work done. Which is why we offer ShareFile Connectors that provide access to all your data from a single source, creating a seamless sync across your apps, devices, company servers, and content management systems already in place. One click to securely access all your files from any device is the key to unlocking limitless productivity.
Trading in legacy data sources for a simple, modern solution
Many organizations have large amounts of business data and content sitting in legacy file servers, SharePoint farms, and unsecure systems such as DropBox, to name a few. While ShareFile Connectors do a great job of giving you a single pane of glass into different data sources, you may want to consider moving your data and file permissions into ShareFile so you can maintain it as a single source of truth, decommission aging file servers, and take advantage of the advanced collaboration features that ShareFile has to offer.
Regardless of how or where you store your data, Citrix has a solution for you. Whether on premises, in the cloud, or hybrid, we can help govern and organize your data, and create a great user experience that your employees expect.
To learn more about how ShareFile can help you in your data migration strategy, visit Citrix.com/ShareFile.
