Today we released a new case study outlining the benefits of deploying a hybrid cloud solution in a large scale construction project. Balfour Beatty implemented Egnyte’s HybridCloud File Sharing solution as a part of the Dallas Fort Worth Airport reconstruction, allowing their design team to save $5.1 million (71%) in costs and eliminating 9,000 lbs of paper printing. Utilizing the data from this and other construction industry customers, Egnyte is also launching its Construction Vertical Market Initiative (VMI).

“Egnyte provides our partners at BARC (the joint venture on the project, which includes Balfour Beatty) the flexibility they need and the security we require,” said Perfecto Solis, Vice President of Airport Development and Engineering at DFW. “As part of our sustainability initiatives we continue to look for ways within our organization to go paperless and hope to use products like Egnyte for future projects.”

Jeff Pistor, the Project Manager at Balfour Beatty noted “The Dallas Fort Worth Airport Terminal Reconstruction and Improvement Program presented us with a unique challenge because of the scale of the project and security requirements. The drawing set was projected to be 20 times larger than our other large projects. Because of the complexity of the project, the number of subcontractors working on concurrent projects and the distance between the jobsite and the jobsite office, we needed a way to make the current drawings available to everyone electronically. We use Egnyte as the backend storage and iPads in the field as the display device, assuring us that everyone in the field has access to the most current drawings and greatly reducing the risk of a subcontractor working off the wrong plans.”

Balfour Beatty initially selected Egnyte because of the security and control they had in setting up and managing folders. Implementation of Egnyte’s Local Cloud (ELC) was critical because accessing the drawings from the cloud was hampered by a slow Internet connection. By syncing a copy of the data behind the firewall and inside the network, they were able to eliminate need for more bandwidth to the Internet and increase the access speed to drawings. Pistor further noted, “Because ELC access was managed at the jobsite, we were able to use it for collaboration with our design team. The team members working with large 3D models were housed in our office and were able to store and share their files on the ELC even though they were all on their own company machines and did not have logins to our network. Our network security was maintained and the team was able to accomplish their need to exchange information quickly.”

About Egnyte’s Construction Vertical Market Initiative

Construction companies face unique problems when it comes to file access, sharing and storage. Whether it’s collaborating on extremely large drawing sets and blueprints, giving granular, highly controlled access to contractors, subcontractors and clients or accessing their files from remote jobsites using tablets and laptops, they need a solution that is easy to implement, easy to use and cost effective. Egnyte HybridCloud is designed to meet their needs. To learn more about Egnyte’s Construction VMI please visit us at http://www.egnyte.com/engineering-construction/

Thousands of companies rely on you to back up their data. How do you backup the backup?

There is no easy way to backup data at our scale. Plus all of our data is always changing so it’s already obsolete by the time you’re done backing it up. We make sure we keep multiple copies of your data in completely redundant and different systems. This means two copies of the customer’s data are never on the same rack, or same server, or same location. Additionally for some customers we offer a DR service – we can explicitly maintain yet another copy in a different location. It is replicated to a geographically different location.

All the data is encrypted so it’s meaningless without the meta-data that goes around it. We back up the database and all the meta-data associated with the user data in the normal sorts of ways.

Getting a new customer’s data set up must be quite the task. Any interesting stories to share?

About 4 years back, we were trying to get 260GB of one customers data (the largest data set at that time) uploaded and we were running into all kinds of stalls and network problems. On a whim, we asked the customer to copy their data onto a USB drive and overnight it to our office. We then took this drive into the data center and ran an rsync (yes, we needed to preserve original timestamps) over regular USB2.

This gave birth to a more formal “data migration” process that we offer customers who try to on-board large data sets (anything more than 500GB) in a very short time. Lesson learned: never underestimate old-world sneaker net techniques.

Managing three data centers can be a challenge! How do you manage them? Do you have a NOC?

We have a virtual NOC model. There isn’t one physical location where all our Operations Engineers work. We have 3 levels of Operations Engineers. Ops engineer IIIs are looking at dashboards and alerts. They have playbooks and scripts to figure out what the problem is and escalate to Ops II or Ops I as needed. They also work with our support folks who field calls from users 24/7.

How do you NOC folks collaborate?

One thing we did was to create chat rooms in OpenFire. Ops Engineers can ask questions and get answers from others in the chat room. We also have a chat room where Ops Engineers log information about actions they are taking. This is a light-weight way to keep track of what is going on (without tickets, etc). We can then review the chat log to see the patterns that are developing and to find the root cause.

What tools do you use to monitor the system?

We use a mix of Cacti, Nagios, Graphite, and Zenoss for monitoring our systems. Alerts are important to get notifications about problems and to fix them. But it’s very important to keep track of trends of information as well. It is invaluable when it is time to make critical decisions.

I haven’t heard of Graphite before. What do you use it for?

Graphite is an open source tool to keep track of trend information (similar to rrd2). We use it to trend all sorts of information. Where we used to have a gut feeling about something now we know for sure. For example, if the trend shows that all the servers in rack4 are running a few degrees hotter, then we can check the vent or cooling systems.

Have you found and solved issues because of Graphite?

Absolutely! We had released a new version of our sync client and noticed that there was a spike in the number of rsync requests. Now the users never saw any change in functionality but because we saw the change in the trend we were able to track down the bug and fix it before it became a full-blown issue.

Tell us about how you hire for positions on your team. What kinds of folks are you looking for?

Everyone who interviews for an ops position interviews with an Ops Engineer, a support person, and 1-2 people in the engineering team. Folks on my team interact with all of them. I’m not looking for super-star specialists. I’m interested in people who are familiar with a whole variety of technologies especially from large-scale environments.

Is there a question you ask on every interview?

My personal top question is “What do you do out of work?” Ops is pretty much a 24/7 job. Sure, you may be at the office only at certain times but your availability is very important. You should be able to get on the Internet at the drop of a hat. The reason why I ask the question is people do different things to recharge. So if someone likes to go hiking for days outside of cell phone range they might not be a good candidate!

Thanks for all the great info! Would you recommend some resources to continue learning?

Highscalability is a site we read to learn about how other large scale architectures are maintained. You’ll read about the Facebooks and Googles of the world and how they solve their problems. Some of the lessons there apply equally to you whether you run 5 or 5,000 servers.

May 11, 2012, Spiceworks Community

To view the original article on Spiceworks or to ask followup questions, click here.

“We have been working tirelessly to build a product that truly addresses the file sharing problems of businesses, beginning with small and medium businesses and now the enterprise,” said Vineet Jain, CEO, Egnyte. “Being chosen by the Y&R Group for an enterprise-wide deployment was truly exciting, and a testament to our ability to address the needs of the enterprise. They’re a world class group of companies that collaborate on some of the most creative and innovative campaigns the world has seen, we’re proud to now support them with our world class hybrid cloud file sharing platform.”

“We didn’t have the resources of an Enterprise, but needed to build something similar with less staff and a smaller budget. Egnyte enabled us to save $55,000 of our IT budget.”

- Piotr Malinski, Head of Information Technology

Download Case Study

By David Halpin, SVP of engineering at Quickoffice

Enterprises today face a mobile conundrum. Everyone wants to keep pace with the evolving technologies, but when and how should an Enterprise adopt a BYOD strategy? And if they do, how can they be sure that one false move won’t jeopardize the organization’s security and content? IBM’s CIO just recently announced they were rolling out a BYOD movement to nearly a ½ million workers.

Additionally, tablets are having a transformative impact on enterprises. ChangeWave Research recently polled 1,604 business IT buyers, and 22 percent plan to purchase tablets for their employees in Q2, 2012. Our own user surveys show an increasing number of people take notes on tablets rather than laptops. Add the growing adoption of cloud services, and you have new technology at hand to enable a truly productive mobile workforce.

Is this perhaps a good indication for the rest of us to get on board? It’s a complex question that many are considering while they think about adopting the latest mobile technology.

At Quickoffice, we enjoy a unique position and perspective on the growing enterprise mobile cloud market. Enterprises and small businesses alike, are increasingly approaching Quickoffice for secure productivity applications for their multi-platform, multi-device and multi-cloud environments. This spurred the development of our ProSelect HD application and partnership with Egnyte, among several other unique enterprise mobile initiatives. Today, corporate users want anytime, anywhere access to their critical documents to conduct work on the go, and securely share files and collaborate with colleagues, clients or partners.

Mobile users are certainly coming of age and it’s important enterprises keep pace, while keeping security concerns in check. The cloud is becoming a reality in the mobile enterprise, and apps are the viewports connecting devices to data in the cloud, making hardware and operating systems increasingly irrelevant. Most people carry multiple devices and the old model of managing mobile devices simply won’t work anymore.

With the emergence of mobile applications, it’s the access the apps have – not the device itself – that endangers your corporate data. Today’s app-centric devices can compromise security by storing un-encrypted data, not requiring passwords, accessing your email, cut / copy and pasting data outside security sandboxes, publish data to cloud storage provides, sharing data via WiFi, just to name a few. To address this concern, look to implement applications that have enterprise configurations to enable a division between corporate and personal data and support proper enterprise security models.

Bottom line: Employees will use personal mobile devices and applications regardless of whether enterprises provide consent. As such, it’s important to try and secure the user’s devices as much as possible. So, we’d like to leave you with a few tips on how you can start to get better control of BYOD.

1. User education – explain to staff members what the real dangers of BYOD are
2. Cost sharing – share the cost of the device or monthly service with employees to help control BYOD
3. Purchase assistance – offer to help employees select a new phone or other device will allow IT to establish device standards
4. Reward for enrollment – give the user something in return for allowing access to his or her device to promote employee buy-in
5. Reward for good behavior – offer rewards to users who follow acceptable use policies

We wish you luck as you bravely enter the new mobile enterprise world. It’s a world that is rapidly changing and evolving, but it offers great opportunities if harnessed correctly.

Uploading files to custom objects provides the ability to track and share files related to company records beyond the following standard Salesforce objects – Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, and Accounts.  For example, if you have created a custom object for your Products, you can upload technical diagrams associated with specific parts of those products.

Folders will be created for each record, and files added to the records will be saved to those folders.  Anyone with access to a custom record can view files associated with that record.

Egnyte provides easy file access and sharing within Salesforce, with no limits to storage capacity or file size. Access rules are enforced consistently whether users access files in Salesforce or directly through Egnyte.

• Collaborate with team members, even if they are not Salesforce users.
• Share files securely with prospects and customers.
• Salesforce access rules are applied to files when accessed directly in Egnyte.

Download Egnyte for Salesforce today!

Since inception, it has quickly become a dynamic place where businesses can go to assess, assemble and purchase over 985 solution offerings within the VMware technology ecosystem.  So, why is that important for Egnyte customers? As a core part of your file sharing, storage and backup infrastructure, Egnyte works with other best-of-breed solutions to allow you to create custom solutions that help your employees work smarter, faster and more efficiently.

First and foremost, when deployed in conjunction with VMware, the Egnyte Enterprise Local Cloud (deployed as a virtual appliance) synchronizes files between your on-premise VMware file server using any existing hardware and the cloud. The bi-directional file sync technology provides redundant file storage and backup as well as secure file access from anywhere on any device, online or offline.  This sets up your employees and partners with the ability to collaborate and work from just about anywhere, while always feeling like they are accessing their files from one central location.

Once you’ve established your core infrastructure, you can expand what users can do and how they do it through Egnyte’s partner ecosystem. Each partner integration offers Egnyte users enhanced capabilities in their respective areas of focus. All of these add-on solutions are available on the VSX marketplace including offerings from: Google Docs, Outlook, Salesforce.com, Quickoffice, iOS, Android, NETGEAR, NetApp, and VMware. Whether it’s content creation/modification, multi-device support or behind the firewall storage, there are multiple solutions to choose from, and the list will only get longer over time.

Expand your Egnyte implementation and empower your employees with the tools that will help them get their job done. Visit Egnyte in the VMware Marketplace at: https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/products/7581

Our hybrid cloud approach is key to providing company-wide file storage and sharing infrastructure for businesses. We combine unlimited storage in the cloud, mobile access, easy file sharing with business partners – and fast local LAN speed access with group off-line capability, an absolute must for any enterprise.

I realize that we have raised only $17M vs ~$190M Box has raised, which makes this seem a lot like picking a fight with someone who has a machine gun, while we have a wooden knife. Not so, when it comes to the needs of Enterprises, an area where we are hard to beat.

In an interview for the VP Marketing hire, I had this point of view from one of the candidates: “Reminiscent of tactics I would see in the CRM space. SugarCRM or RightNow would try these highly aggressive tactics to make a splash against Salesforce.com. In the end, they just looked small and validated Salesforce as the clear winner. I get the sense the Egnyte team likes the scrappy ‘competitive’ marketing programs, which is totally fine. Acknowledge the alternatives for the customer, but dismiss them through inability to meet customer needs. Clarity of message, delivered thorough the right channels designed to reach the target audience, I believe is a stronger, more sustainable marketing strategy.”

Interesting point of view and I am sure Box would like to believe that they are the sf.com for cloud storage.

When our sales team runs into Box in a particular deal, and if the customer wants a pure cloud based solution with workflow collaboration features, we actually recommend they use Box or a similar point solution.

Reality on the ground for Egnyte is, we can not match the marketing spend of Box, more so since the unit economics in terms of customer acquisition cost is not attractive with this kind of spend. What we can do, however, is to counter leverage their awareness to build ours.

Next few weeks will tell if this program becomes a good lead engine or just a news item.

In a move that highlights the intense competition of among the new breed of online file-sharing services, Silicon Valley startup Egnyte is offering nine months of free file storage to any paying customers that defect from its biggest rival, the omnipresent Box.net.

Egnyte calls this its “Box Buster Buyout,” and the company has updated its website with a white paperand flashy flowcharts detailing the many ways it beats Box — at least from its perspective.

“They are showing up wherever we show up,” Vineet Jain, Egnyte’s CEO, tells Wired. “They have a huge amount of money to spend. They are at every conference…so clearly they are targeting us. So I turned it around to say: ‘You want to pick a fight with me? Let’s pick a fight on enterprise grounds where I can clobber you.’”

Competition in this burgeoning market is fierce. Terri McClure, an analyst with research outfit Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), says that she and her group are tracking 21 different companies that offer some sort corporate file-sharing tool. “And it’s only going to get more competitive,” she tells Wired. Those 21 companies also include Dropbox, YouSendIt, Nomadisk, ShareFile, SugarSync, and Syncplicity.

Box.net began life as a free consumer service, but it’s using the so-called freemium model to work into way into business. The idea is to get a company’s employees hooked on a free version of the tool, and then coax the company to pay for a dedicated corporate version.

But Egnyte avoids the freemium model. Jain says that unlike Box, Egnyte is completely focused on paying customers. Plus, he says, his company offers a “hybrid” service, meaning you can store files on your own servers as well as Egnyte’s.

Box declined to comment on Egnyte’s claims, but like Egnyte, the company has made a name for itself by picking fights with competitors.

In December of 2011, McClure’s Enterprise Strategy Group published a study detailed what it considered to be the top eight players in the file-sharing market. Both Box and Egnyte were included, and both scored about the same on the breadth of their enterprise tools.

By Caleb Garling, Wired

April 9, 2012

Aimed at businesses that are paying for Box accounts and found they’ve outgrown their usefulness, the Box Buster program allows paying Box customers to switch to a matching plan on Egnyte, at no cost for the duration of 2012 and free migration¹.

After detailed analysis and intensive discussions with our customers who have already made the switch from Box to Egnyte, we’ve identified 5 scenarios where businesses might find they should still use Box as their file sharing solution:

You don’t need to ask permission - you’ve probably already sidestepped IT, or better yet, you don’t have an IT department to sidestep. If you just need to get a job done fast, but aren’t concerned with who sees what folders or what types of access they have to a file, Box is a great solution.

Your head is always in the clouds - The cloud is a great thing, we think so too: if you’re content to always use a web interface and have no need for things like mapped drives with desktop access or a local copy of your files for your entire office that is continuously synced with the cloud, go ahead and get Box.

You think size doesn’t matter - If your files are relatively small, which precludes most multi-media files, web design files, engineering files etc., then why bother with a more scalable solution with no file size limits? Also, if your total file storage needs are only a few gigabytes and don’t include your entire office, sure, use Box.

You don’t mind a long-distance relationship - Some companies don’t need to keep a version of their files locally where they can touch it, literally. If you’re ok with keeping everything in the cloud and have no need for fast local access or do not have any compliance issues to deal with, Box is a viable solution.

You’re a trusting soul - If you alone are your company, or it’s just you and some close friends, you can trust that if they leave, they’ll return all your files; Box will work, no problem. No need for turning off access precisely when you let them go or checking an audit of what client files they downloaded just before giving you notice.

Don’t believe us? Hear what some of our customers have to say:

“Looking for a solution that is right for the team is not just something we say, it’s something we live by, and that means evaluating options and creating a winning strategy,” said Kerry Keating, Head Coach, Men’s Basketball, Santa Clara University. “We wanted to put in a file sharing solution that would give players, coaches and staff alike the fast ubiquitous access they need, regardless of whether they were using a laptop or tablet. Box and Egnyte went head-to-head, and in the end, Egnyte won because it provided secure reliable access to files while giving our IT department the controls they expect out of a world-class solution. Egnyte HybridCloud supports Santa Clara University Men’s Basketball.”

“Being a wealth management company, security is an obvious priority for us, but beyond that, we wanted to find a solution that gave our IT department the control they needed, coupled with a great user experience for our employees, vendors, and clients on a single unified platform,” said Taylor Herzog, Technology Solutions Manager at True North Advisors. “After looking at Dropbox, Box, Sharefile, and Egnyte HybridCloud, we realized that Egnyte was the right solution for our needs. We were able to deploy quickly, giving different levels and types of access to different people ranging from clients to employees, regardless of where they were accessing their files from, or whether they used a phone, tablet or laptop. Further, the hybrid cloud approach means we always have access to our client data residing on a NAS device behind our firewall, giving us and our clients an extra level of comfort with the same level of high speed local access we had grown accustomed to. Users did not have to compromise on the experience they were accustomed to; instead we simply made it better.”

“Being a best-of-breed law firm is a fundamental part of our belief system, so much so that we are constantly trying to improve business processes and find efficiencies,” said Jennifer Goshorn, Chief Administrative Officer at Gunderson Dettmer, LLP. “We have found that with a distributed workforce and client base, our needs to easily share and manage large file sizes with granular control over who sees, edits or deletes files is of paramount importance. After researching available solutions, we came across Egnyte and quickly realized the benefit of their IT focus, while still offering a simple, easy-to-use interface for accessing and sharing files. They’ve provided us with a secure, centrally administered solution that can allow our lawyers to work more efficiently and effectively with their colleagues and clients.”

Designed with IT in mind, but easy enough for the average business user, Egnyte offers the control, security and scalability necessary for solving your file sharing requirements. Egnyte’s team has made a career of building and deploying enterprise solutions, isn’t it time to grow up and use a grown up solution? Egnyte HybridCloud File Sharing, join today by visiting us at http://www.egnyte.com/ms/egnyte-vs-box/.