How to Avoid the Pains of Setting up Network Drives and VPNs
Submitted by CJ Gill on October 1st, 2009
I got a call from my friend yesterday evening and he said he needed some help with a task assigned to him at work. He works for a company that uses traditional approach to file sharing. So the task was to allocate network share to 20 new hires across different locations. Some folders required full access and some only read and write but not delete privileges. My friend knew how to map network drives on a home network but here it became complex as it would require creating a group on the AD server for these users, setup VPN for remote access and map these drives for the users using logon scripts.
So I gave him the instructions, he completed the task but said “it’s painful”. This is a problem common to most corporations who have, let’s say, more than 10 employees, have offices at different locations, employees working remotely or even simply when there are new hires.
We all know that managing file servers, VPNs and firewalls is a tedious task and requires lot of IT time and effort. IT typically chose to deploy VPNs to maintain security but users have to compromise on performance – so slow! Imagine accessing files via VPN while you are travelling with Mi-Fi or 3G data card.
With Oxygen, you don’t have to worry about mapping network drives, managing complex permissions or setting up VPNs. Just install the software, login and start creating folders. All your files will be in the cloud accessible from anywhere. You don’t have to worry about downloading or emailing files to other people. Just put them in a folder and share!
Whenever you create a folder, edit a file or make any changes, all the subscribed users can see the changes real time in the feed. Network drives aren’t smart enough to tell you who is doing what.
So in a nutshell, in addition to ease of use and control beyond corporate firewall, with Oxygen:
- You get end to end encrypted files backed up in reliable cloud storage
- You can share files with internal as well as external people
- You can see the complete real time user activity via feed
- Administrators can logoff end users remotely using kill switch
- Remote wipe data on lost notebooks and laptops
- You can sync all, none or selective folders and get the latest files
- Work offline if you don’t have internet connection. Files will be automatically uploaded when you are connected!
If you want to avoid the pain of setting up network shares or VPNs, you can test drive Oxygen.
