Box.net – Storage Made Easy Blog

April 20, 2020October 5, 2020

CloudEdit – Frictionless File Editing for Remote Workers with the File Fabric

Covid-19 has shattered the normality we are all used to. Governments and health organisations are scrambling to try and control the virus at present. To prevent the spread of infection, different countries have been restricting movement to cope with the pandemic. The main rule, work from home where you can. Only travel if absolutely necessary. Now more than ever, the importance of remote working is crucial, not only to keep your business from staying afloat, but also to protect your staff, as well as others.

One difficult challenge for companies is enabling employees to have the same experience no matter where they are, whether they are working from home, in the office, or working whilst on-the-go, and irrespective of the operating system they are using, be this Windows or Mac OSX. CloudEdit is one feature of the File Fabric than can enable employees to achieve just this.

Continue reading “CloudEdit – Frictionless File Editing for Remote Workers with the File Fabric”

June 25, 2018June 25, 2018

File Fabric Feature Focus – Collaborating on the move using FileBox

The File Fabric has lots of hidden cool features that are very powerful and as a part of a new series of posts on File Fabric features we are going to kick off with a feature called ‘FileBox’.

FileBox is a feature that enables files to be emailed, from any standard email client, directly into any FileBox nominated folder, or shared team folder.

Continue reading “File Fabric Feature Focus – Collaborating on the move using FileBox”

February 5, 2015April 18, 2020

Announcing secure file sharing for Gmail Chrome users for public and private storage clouds

**This extension is deprecated**

For those who use the Enterprise File Share and Sync service from Storage Made Easy they will know that as part of the Windows and Mac desktop tools that are provided that there is a n email toolbar integration into Mac Mail and Microsoft Outlook that enables users to securely share file links rather than file attachments.

Mac Email Screenshot

Windows Email Screenshot

This support for secure email link sharing has now been extended for Chrome users using Gmail using the Storage Made Easy Gmail Plugin available from the Chrome web store.

Once added this provides a new toolbar entry when composing Gmail’s on Chrome:

Once selected this prompts the user to log into their SME Account, if SaaS, or the user can set their custom endpoint if using the SME On-Site Enterprise File Share and Sync solution:

Once logged in the user is presented with their mapped clouds:

From here files can be shared as links can be shared from any of the mapped cloud directories:

If a cloud governance file policy has been set by the Cloud Administrator for the team account then the details here will be pre-populated otherwise options can be chosen prior to link generation. After this when share is clicked, the link is added to the email:

When the link is shared, if Auditing is turned on within the SME Account, then the link generation will be recorded in the Audit log and once the remote user opens the link the remote IP address will also be recorded.

The SME Chrome extension works with any free/personal, team, or on-premise account and works with over 45 public/private cloud storage providers.

**Note: only team and on-premise accounts provide the Audit features

October 28, 2014October 29, 2014

Storage Made Easy Improves Its Unified Web Cloud File Manager

Today we have upgraded the Storage Made Easy Web Cloud File Manager.

The Storage Made Easy Web File Manager is different to a lot of file managers that you see today as it is hierarchical in nature and resembles a true file tree (akin to windows explorer). It’s hierarchical nature enables it to easily work with and manoeuvre around large data sets.

Over the years we have had a lot of feedback from companies and users about how they would like to see the File Manager work and what features they would like and we’ve used this feedback to make improvements, which are outlined below:

Large Layout in inline Mode

The File Manager layout is now larger in inline mode taking more advantage of the screen space.

The File Manager has been optimised for iPad / Tablet

A number of optimizations where done for working with the desktop Cloud File Manager on a tablet. The first is that it opens in full screen mode when being used on such devices. The second is that there are optimizations that make it easier to use such as being easily to widen / constrict the view on each pane. Also interactions have been optimized to work with touch events. The selection of files has also been made easier with checkbox selection options (these selection options are also available when using the FM from a PC).

Easier File Selection

A lot of feedback has been made to us about making file selection easier. To that end we have made it easier to select files by using a checkbox paradigm. Check boxes appear so that a file can be selected when the mouse is placed at the left hand side of a file.

Image Previews

Image thumbnails can now be previewed as the File Manager is browsed.

Help Inline

The File Manager now contains help guides showing how to action the most common functions such as copy/paste:

Default PDF Viewer is now native

The default PDF viewer is now a native viewer rather than Google Viewer (although Google Viewer can still be used and be setup to be the default). This means the viewer sandboxes any data viewed in this way just to the SME service.

New Themes / Custom Themes

There are two new large themes for the File Manager a blue theme and a normal theme. The existing themes have been rename to “tiny”. Also now, for Appliance users, custom themes can be created. This will be available in the next Appliance version.

The File timestamp to be used can now be selected

As SME is an abstraction between the remote cloud it works with more than one timestamp. Firstly it has its own concept of time, based on UTC, as to when a timestamp was modified through the SME service. Next it handles what the timestamp shows on the remote cloud service, and lastly it can show the local file time of a file uploaded to a remote service via SME (this may be different to the remote cloud time as some cloud services ignore the local file time and simply timestamp the file at the time it was uploaded to their service). Although all three are handled the user can now set which they want shown by default.

Edit on Hover

When hovering on a file, certain options are displayed for easy access. This has been enhanced so that files that can be edited, such as documents, text files etc can be edited by clicking the edit icon on hover.

Comments view is now collaborative / real time

When working in full file / comments view, if another user is also reviewing the same file and making comments then the comments will appear in real-time like an instant message

Search inline

The File Manager now features an inline folder search (rather than having to move out to the tabbed search). This is a quick search mechanism to search for files in folders and sub folders.

Favourites and Quick Upload placed at top of file tree

Favourites and Quick uploads have been placed at the top of the file tree for easy access. These can also be configured to be hidden.

New way to copy / move files

Copy and Move can still be done by selecting files and drag and drop but now there are buttons and a wizard to make copy and moving files between folders or cloud services even easier.

There are also other numerous small changes and bug fixes but this post highlights the main functional changes.

May 15, 2014May 31, 2018

Sharing Folders Securely from a Cloud File Server for almost any Cloud Storage.

We have introduced a new feature into the Storage Made Easy platform which enables cloud users to share external folders to other users who will not need a SME Account to gain access to those folders. The feature enables the creation of a secure shared link that is password protected and can be time expired.

The video below shows the feature in action.

March 19, 2014

Using Midnight Commander to work with Amazon S3, OpenStack, DropBox, OneDrive and almost any other Cloud

Midnight Commander is probably the most popular command line file manager in the world, and certainly for Linux distros. Its design was initially inspired by the classic two pane interface that was found in Norton Commander which was a DOS file manager (for those who remember !).

One of the unsung features of the Midnight Commander (also available on other platforms including phones (I used to use this on my old Nokia N900) and windows and mac) is that it can connect to server over FTP.

This is interesting from a Storage Made Easy viewpoint as although SME providers a full suite of Linux tools, SME also provider protocol interoperability as part of its Cloud Gateway features. What is this I hear you ask ? Well, simply put, it enables files you have stored on public or private storage to be accessible over any of the protocols Storage Made Easy exposes ie FTP, FTPS, WebDav, S3, SFTP.

Midnight Commander supports the FTP protocol which makes it easy to get direct access to any storage that is added to a SME Account using the SME FTP cloud protocol adaptor. To do this:

Choose the Left or Right option
Choose FTP link
Enter connection to SME as follows:

username:password@storagemadeeasy.com

or if you are using the SME EU Server:

username:password@eu.storagemadeeasy.com

The net result is a very easy way to bring the cloud into the linux desktop integrated with tools you already know and use. This can be used with the SME Personal CLoud plan, Business Team, and on-site enterprise editions of the product.

February 27, 2014July 22, 2016

New Feature Added: Real Time Document Collaboration

We have added a new feature to the Storage Made Easy platform, real time document collaboration. This is available for team account or Enterprise File Share and Sync on-premise users. It enables real time document editing between team members when online editing using the web document editor. It enables multiple users to open a document at the same time, and enables with everyone to contribute and/or review the document in real time.

This editing facility is available for any document in any cloud that is mapped to work with SME, be it public or private storage (for EFSS on-site users).

The below video shows the feature in action.

January 6, 2014January 16, 2015

Accessing OpenStack, RackSpace, Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox + more using Storage Made Easy and Transmit for Mac

If you have come across this post whilst researching how to access other storage clouds from Transmit then have a look at our Getting Started Guide to show you how you can register for a free account and get on with mapping your chosen Storage Cloud to the SME Cloud Gateway. When you are ready you can register for a free account here.

As many of you who use it know, CloudDav, from SME adds a WebDav layer over any Cloud, even if the underlying clouds do not support WebDav. SME does no however allow the native Mac WebDav client to connect direct because the performance of the native Mac WebDav client is notoriously abysmal for those with large amounts of files.

You can however choose to use other Mac clients to connect to the Cloud Providers that you have mapped to the SME Gateway. We highlighted Forklift as such a client in a prior post, and you can also choose to use Transmit from Panic.

Once you have CloudDav enabled you can choose to access your clouds, mapped via the SME Gateway, through Transmit. First choose to connect over WebDav as in the screenshot below:

You can then choose to connect directly inside of Transmit or as a Virtual Drive that will appear in Finder.

Transmit also has a very nice sync feature that will sync between folder structures. In this way you can sync files with Transmit and SME from different Cloud Storage Providers to your desktop.

Initial view before Sync

The Sync screen after choosing Sync

The Sync Simulation

SME CloudDav is available with every account, even free accounts, although on free accounts it is restricted to 150MB of use per month. The CloudDav protocol Adaptor is just one of the protocol adaptors that SME provides, the others being FTP, SFTP and a compatible S3 API. All protocol adaptors are available in the Storage Made Easy Enterprise edition as part of the Cloud Gateway which the SME Enterprise File Share and Sync is built upon.

November 21, 2013November 21, 2013

In a post PRISM world why your Company needs joined up File Sharing and Governance

The recent controversy with regards to Prism and data snooping has brought the security of corporate data to the fore however the biggest threat to corporate data lies not with the corporate nemesis that is Prism but with the number of data leaks that occur every day in companies.

These include new phenomena such as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Bring your Own Cloud (BYOC) as well as the thorny issue of what files are shared over email.

Data is any companies biggest asset and not controlling how corporate data is disseminated is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode in your company. Why? Take your pick, Legislative reasons, fraudulent reason, competitive reasons. There are many reasons why not controlling data dissemination could trip your company up.

Companies need to consider how to build an Effective data governance serves ACROSS their enterprise data silos. Doing so will define a cohesive set of parameters for data management, data usage, as well as the ability to create governance processes for a companies internal use, and for their supply chain, which ultimately leads to information assets that are well managed.

In the world of Cloud it is key that Data Governance and data policies work not only with data behind the corporate firewall but also cloud data and cloud services.

So what should you consider as a company to manage your data assets ?

1. Understand what information is sensitive across all data silos, have a federate access control mechanism that works with your user across this private and cloud data silos. Storage Made Easy provides such a federate mechanism to assign and control user permissions and access at a very granular level that overlays one or more data stores.

2. Set policies for data access and enforce them through common tools. For employee sharing of data through tools such as email, make it easy but also set policies that can define expiry time and password protection. Storage Made Easy has plug in’s for Microsoft Outlook and Mac Mail that enables productive file sharing across all cloud / private data but which has built in support for policy enforcement.

These policies should also ripple through to the mobile Applications used in a company:

3. Use Cloud Encryption for sensitive data and ensure that you control the private key. See our previous post on encryption and securing data for further information.

4. Audit all your company data. Irrespective of the policies set you should get in the habit of auditing your company data. SME enables the setup of an automated email to a specified user of the previous day file events such as sharing, files updated etc.

5. Set BYOD policies and device access policies that work like your company works. For example, have a contract firm that you gave access to a specific folder ? Then designate that they can only access the folder using a web browser and only from a specific IP address.

Summary

Companies need to connect disconnected information to enable corporate governance.

October 11, 2013July 1, 2016

How to encrypt, secure and access sensitive cloud storage data

**Updated 1st July 2016*

The recent PRISM Data snooping controversies have heightened almost every companies awareness of the potential vulnerabilities of data stored off-premise in the Cloud. Many Cloud Storage companies’ talk about encrypting data ‘at rest’ but the real issue is that the storage companies control the encryption rather than the company whose data is stored controlling the private key.

One of the features that Storage Made Easy provides is an encryption feature that can encrypt data uploaded to remote (and local) Cloud Storage. SME supports 50+ cloud storage vendors, which means companies are able to take advantage of private key encryption for some, or all data, across cloud storage providers.

For individual users of our cloud SaaS services SME uses a key entered by a user to encrypt data, but the key is not stored on the SME hosted service. If the key is lost, or forgotten, then when trying to subsequently access the file the user will not be able to gain access to the file as the correct key phrase will not be known.

For companies that use the SME SaaS hosted service team Admins specify a key that uses a similar mechanism but is applied to all users. Unlike the personal encryption the key phrase is either stored encrypted by the SME service, or it can be stored with a self hosted Vault instance.

For enterprise users who self-host the SME service then the key is can be stored on the service behind the corporate firewall or again it could use the open source Vault software on a key server.

SME uses AES-256 encryption using the Rijndael cipher, with Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) where the block size is 16 bytes. A random initialisation vector is generated when the user supplies an encryption key. The cipher Rijndael consists of:

– an initial Round Key addition
– Nr-1Rounds
– a final round.

The chaining variable goes into the “input” and the message block goes into the “Cipher Key. The likelihood of recovering a file that has been encrypted using our encryption is fairly remote. The most efficient key-recovery attack for Rijndael is exhaustive key search. The expected effort of exhaustive key search depends on the length of the Cipher Key and for a 16-byte key, 2127 applications of Rijndael.

Once files are encrypted in this manner they can be accessed by an of the comprehensive SME desktop (Web, Mac, Windows, Linux) or mobile tools (Windows Phone, iOS, Android, BlackBerry). When an encrypted file is accessed the user is prompted to provide the private key phrase before the file can be opened.

If the file is accessed direct from the underlying storage then it will not be able to be used as it will be encrypted and without being opened via the SME service, either hosted or on-premises, it will not be able to be un-encrypted. This makes sensitive data stored on remote servers ultra-secure.

The SME also on-premises Cloud Control service resides behind the corporate firewall. It enables the ability to keep very sensitive data behind the corporate firewall but still enable secure file sharing and at the same time offers the ability to encrypt data that is stored on remote cloud storage and other SaaS services for additional security.

The Storage Made Easy Cloud Encryption service is available to all SME users inclusive of free, Personal Cloud, Business Cloud and Enterprise Cloud

September 13, 2013September 16, 2013

Cloud Computing Use Case: Extending Remote Desktop with a Cloud Drive

Many service providers and companies offer Remote Desktop Services to enable companies to access their desktop remotely. Applications are installed for the users where user settings and data are saved to their profile.

We’ve had a few requests from companies and service providers now who wanted users to easily be able to access data on remote clouds (such as Azure, DropBox, Box, FTP, WebDav, Sharepoint Amazon S3 etc) from a remote desktop.

With Storage Made Easy, this is easily done as SME presents a WebDav entry point to all clouds that SME supports whether they support WebDav or not. This means the service provider needs only co-locate the SME software appliance (supplied as an OVF compliant file) in their network and add a simple script to the users startup. The script it:

NET USE * \\webdav.storagemadeeasy.com@SSL\DavWWWRoot
pause

This enables user to get a mapped drive to remote cloud storage as soon as they login to their remote desktop and to browse and access these files like any other data drive and is a simple solution for bringing remote clouds directly into a users remote desktop using a simple metaphor they understand, “a drive”.

May 15, 2013

Storage Made Easy made easy provides free WebDav access to Clouds that don’t support WebDav

We are now giving away 150MB of free WebDav access to mapped Clouds to all SME free accounts. This is enough to access around 300 documents on Mobile devices per month and is enough for the average use of WebDav into Clouds such as DropBox, Google Drive, SkyDrive etc.

If you want to access more than just pay a one time $5 fee and get access to 2GB per month of WebDav for the life of your use of our service. If you want unlimited use then just sign up to be a personal cloud or business cloud user.

Also, all free accounts feature 5GB free storage on Amazon S3 and the ability to add up to 3 other Clouds that you wish to access.