Primeur DropFile Enabling users and organizations to send files of any size and format without turning to unsecure and unmanaged workarounds. White Paper April 2016
1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...3 2 MOTIVATION AND CHALLENGES...4 3 PRIMEUR DROPFILE - BUSINESS DRIVERS AND STRATEGIC RESPONSES...6 4 PRIMEUR DROPFILE - THE SOLUTION...7 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Organizations around the world have to manage a big issue: how can they allow employees to exchange files with each other, with external parties and applications safely? What should they do if, in addition, these files are getting bigger? How can they track the file streams generated within or outside the company? File transfers, sent or received by people within an organization, represent a significant percentage of the total and, as a result of the growing demand for knowledge sharing and productivity, companies that don t provide secure and easy-to-use file exchange tools, can jeopardize data security or lose efficiency. IT leaders of large and highly-regulated enterprises state that data security and regulatory compliance must be maintained to the highest possible level. Top-tier data security should be considered fundamental for any enterprise when considering file management solutions. Regulatory compliance support is an essential element of any data management solution. The lack of consistently up-to-date tools and systems, ensuring ongoing adherence to evolving legal standards, creates risks that are otherwise unavoidable and should be considered unacceptable. Employees demand effective and user-friendly file exchanging capabilities, and organizations that do not implement these internally will see an increase of sensitive data being transmitted without their control. By implementing file exchanging platforms that leverage on-site deployment models, enterprises can supervise sensitive information exchange without compromising employee productivity, operational efficiency, and competitive advantage. 3
MOTIVATION AND CHALLENGES Company employees are continuously exchanging files with colleagues, customers, suppliers, partners and corporate applications and the constrains imposed by corporate e-mail are often driving them to use other end-user systems that they are familiar with. Although this workaround allows to easily reach the objective, it doesn t consider all the related side effects. Employees are aware that the market offers a variety of advanced tools, choosing them over the internal IT solutions makes the company vulnerable from a security perspective. Moreover, an employee could use his own tool to bring, intentionally, confidential information outside the company, knowing that the use of corporate file sharing systems or e-mail could be traced. Whatever the reason, every one of these employees is effectively ignoring the security and traceability put in place by their employers specifically to protect their valuable corporate asset: data. In addition, the company s risk is increasing as the financial penalties for data loss are now significant but these are even dwarfed by the loss of revenue and reputation if the data loss becomes front page news. The challenge for corporate IT is to find an easy-to-use system that also guarantees security, manageability, and E2E traceability and, not least, cost effectiveness. There are two types of solutions in the market that meet these needs: 1) Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing (EFSS) refers to a range of on-premises or cloudbased capabilities that enables individuals to synchronize and share documents, photos, videos and files across mobile devices such as smartphones tablets and PCs. Sharing can happen between people (for example, partners and customers) within or outside the organization, or on a mobile device as data sharing among apps. Access to files in enterprise repositories (such as file servers and content platforms) from mobile devices or remote PCs extends user productivity and collaboration to modern use cases. Security and collaboration support are critical aspects for enterprises to adopt EFSS *. 2) Ad Hoc File Transfer as Primeur DropFile, to reach similar goals of EFSS without their critical aspects. Ad Hoc File Transfer refers to solutions that combine the security and reliability features with an ease to use approach typical of the e-mail tools. * Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing, Monica Basso, Charles Smulders, Jeffrey Mann, 22 July 2015. 4
PRIMEUR DropFile ESSENTIAL FEATURES Essential features for users: Easy and simple-to-use with usable interface; Capability to transfer files of any size; Mandatory use of an e-mail address to identify and send the file(s) to a recipient; Exploitable to send files to recipients outside the company; Working on any device; Easy and simple-to-use for exchanging files between person and applications, and vice-versa. Essential features for companies: Guarantee of confidentiality: the files can only be read by the recipient and no one else; Ensuring traceability of exchanges: the company must know who sent and received what and when; API and CLI for application and batch integration; Reporting and analysys; Integration with an existing MFT infrastructure, if required; Protocol enforcement for download: many protocols can be used for downloading the file; Nothing to install by IT department; Defining and Controlling the use of the tool by the users (through a dashboard); Easy-to-integrate with the corporate security policies (i.e. integration of LDAP, MS-AD); Scalable both in terms of users and volume/size of files transferred; Compliant with corporate standards of reliability and high availability. 5
PRIMEUR DropFile BUSINESS DRIVERS AND STRATEGIC RESPONSES Improve control on file exchange Companies need to have the full control of file exchange within and outside the organization and to be able to access all their data. Reporting, Traceability and Audit Auditing/reporting capabilities are key features to manage any data leakage: to maintain compliance with IT standards and governance mandates, IT needs to have complete visibility into file access. IT should be able to understand user activity, who sent data, which files were received and downloaded and when, to whom users are sending files. As well, IT should be able to inspect all files exchanged by users to identify malicious users behavior and to archive all data for future inspection. Fast Notification and Simple Retrieval of Files Recipients receive an e-mail notification when a user sends them a file with Primeur DropFile and, without having to install anything, they retrieve files from their preferred web browser. Integration with existing infrastructure Business data availability, anywhere and anytime, is a success key for the growth of every organization but sometimes internal IT security and infrastructural policies are too strict to open the direct access to this information. Corporate IT has to find a cost effective solution to reach the business goal acting on the security aspects. Working together with existing IT infrastructure, Primeur DropFile enables users to receive files stored in company s network shared folders, and get access to files that otherwise cannot be reached outside of corporate networks or from mobile devices. Moreover IT can easily integrate all applications enabling them to send files to users and vice-versa. Security Primeur DropFile provides a feature to protect data while users send them with a SSL secure channel and an optional cryptography of files. 6
PRIMEUR DropFile THE SOLUTION Primeur DropFile is built on Primeur s extensive knowledge of secure managed file transfer to address the corporate requirements for security and traceability providing at the same time employees with a simple and easy to use way of exchanging files of any size or format. Through a simple web interface, users can send files to a list of e-mail recipients with the possibility to include a text into the e-mail. Recipients receive the e-mail message with an URL to download their files safely. Primeur DropFile can be installed in private cloud or onpremises and used with any device. Primeur DropFile is based on the core software of Spazio MFT/S, Primeur s enterprise class MFT solution - essential component of the Hybrid Integration Platform Primeur Ghibli - therefore it enables full tracking and auditing of the file transfer flows. Anytime, users will be able to see: who sent a file, who downloaded it and who didn t, which users performed which operations. With an interface similar to a webmail, Primeur DropFile provides organizations with a simple, fast and ready-to-use tool whilst at the same time ensuring the full control and audit of data exchange. P2A A2P P2P 7
PRIMEUR DropFile MAIN FEATURES Web interface Cross-browser compatible Easy to use, no installation nor training required Customizable with the client s visual identity Mobile application Primeur DropFile offers a complete mobile experience with any device to allow users to interact with their own documents everywhere. 8
Traceability and auditing The web application gives also access to the Report and Statistics Information. A Security Officer can access a dedicated console (dashboard) to control user activity and block suspicious behavior. He can - for example - manage users, inspect files or block the exchanging of files. Primeur DropFile provides a set of filters to sort activities by date, by file, by sender and by receiver helping users to find information quickly. Primeur DropFile allows the archiving of all files sent and received allowing the organization to have full control of data transfer. Primeur DropFile core components Primeur DropFile core architecture is a powerful e-mail notification system built around a managed file transfer engine (Spazio MFT/S ) and a file metadata registry (Primeur File Service Registry), where user interaction is mediated by a web application (DropFile webapp) with comprehensive authentication, authorization and audit. No limits on files size The MFT engine that powers Primeur DropFile allows the transfer of files of all sizes ensuring always the best performance, guarantying reliability and security. Easy integration with IT environment Primeur DropFile is designed to easily integrate existent applications enabling file transfers between persons and applications: Person to Application (P2A) and Application to Person (A2P). The P2A and A2P features enable the integration with enterprise application and, together with Primeur technologies, help to automate the data exchange throughout the entire IT environment. Some plugins are supplied to cover typical integration use cases like Microsoft Office Outlook or Microsoft SharePoint and others. Primeur DropFile managed file transfer engine enables to simply automate data integration coming from people with company s applications (P2A) and vice-versa (A2P), using different communication protocols and integration capabilities of other Primeur s solutions as Primeur GBI. 9
Notifications when recipients download the files Primeur DropFile is able to notify when a recipient has correctly downloaded the files. External user on-boarding External users can join Primeur DropFile in two ways: By requesting a referral to an existing Primeur DropFile sponsor user, who will be in charge to approve or refuse the request By accepting an invitation sent by a Primeur DropFile sponsor user. Primeur DropFile profiles users (internal and external to the company) and guarantees that files are only sent to authorized users. Increase Security One of the most important features of Primeur DropFile is the security: Senders and recipients have to authenticate in order to access the application. Files can be protected with a password generated by the system. Primeur DropFile can encrypt file during the upload and the password is notified to recipient in a separated mail. Primeur DropFile features 10
PRIMEUR DropFile USE CASES In addition to the normal use of Primeur DropFile to exchange files within the company, the solution can be a crucial tool for the exchange of files with recipients outside the company, especially when high level security measures are required. An example might be represented by the case of the marketing department that must be able to exchange files related to a new product protected by trade secret before its launch, or a company that needs to transmit confidential and strategic business information to the counterpart during an M&A evaluation process. Use case: M&A process - Data Room File Exchange Autos Inc. would like to buy Megacars Inc. Before to submit an offer, Autos asks Megacars to open a Data Room to analyze businesscritical documents. Primeur DropFile allows the two companies to exchange files like in a virtual data room, so that all the sensitive and confidential documents can be sent and received in a secure way. Thanks to Primeur s solution: Files can be encrypted and protected with a password generated by the system and notified to recipient in a separated mail; Files of any size and format can be transferred; Only a restricted and selected group of people can access the files; Possibility to set up the download expiration date. Use case: New Product Launch The marketing department has prepared all the material for the launch of a new product and needs to send it to the adv agency (catalogs to print, video to edit.). Primeur DropFile makes this operation easy also for those that do not have technical skills, that can independently: send an invitation to the agency to use Primeur DropFile (in white label version); send files of any size to the agency; verify that the recipient has received and downloaded the files; receive final files from the agency. 11
www.primeur.com - info@primeur.com Primeur Group Via Passeggiata, 7 6883 Novazzano (Lugano) - CH Switzerland +41 91 9715070 About Primeur Group Primeur is a multinational company headquartered in Switzerland specializing in Enterprise Data Integration solutions. Using framework and proprietary technologies, it has developed products and solutions for Hybrid Integration, designing and implementing the innovative platform Primeur Ghibli. The Group is widespread in Europe (Switzerland, Italy, UK, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Spain and France), North America, Latam and Asia. Copyright 2016 Primeur. Primeur DropFile is a registered trademark. The names and marks of all Primeur products referenced are trademarks or registered trademarks of Primeur Group. Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.