Design firms using ownCloud have already forgotten how bad FTP was. Because with ownCloud, you don’t need no stinking FTP. Or SFTP. Or long phone or email conversations with clients trying to explain how to download and use an FTP client, just so they can upload some files that are too big for email…
Some of you know exactly what I mean.
One of the lesser-known-but-super-sexy uses of ownCloud is FTP replacement. FTP is going the way of the mimeograph (remember that?) and the teletype, punch cards, zip drives and floppy disks. Gone are the days when design firms, printers, engineers, and other similar agencies had to send FTP credentials to their business customers, talk the less-techy types through the process of downloading a SFTP client, logging in, and then uploading their files…while receiving little to no information about who was viewing what on the FTP site, and when.
A company I once did consulting work for even used an SFTP server to host their packaged software. When a customer purchased the product, the sales team would send an email with FTP credentials, and there they could access the software, and a host of other company information that was stored in other folders on the FTP server. It wasn’t a great system.
Let’s face it, FTP isn’t very secure, and even it’s more secure cousin, SFTP, is a pain in the butt to work with. With an upgrade from the ancient FTP to ownCloud, you can:
- Store your data—no matter how sensitive or proprietary–on your own storage, inside your own datacenter running on your own servers.
- Provide Access to that data to your clients or customers, on any device, wherever they are, and allow them to easily upload and sync files with your server, using a tool they’re already familiar with.
- Integrate seamlessly into your existing security, monitoring, storage and back-up tools and follow existing data protection procedures, leverage existing intrusion detection and monitoring software to alert and correct problems, and provision new users either the ownCloud admin console, or a directory service like AD or LDAP.
- Extend ownCloud through a comprehensive set of APIs to meet your unique requirements.
AND STILL provide seamless, easy-to-use access to sensitive data users have come to expect from consumer grade services.
How much easier can we make this for you? I invite you to try it out. You can take a test drive of ownCloud on our website, or grab the latest version of the ownCloud server off our download page. You don’t have to take my word for it—test it out yourself!
At the end of the day, only ownCloud combines open source flexibility, openness, extensibility and speed of innovation with onsite storage – enabling you to dump that old pal FTP and move into the future with ownCloud — putting file sync and share control back into the hands of IT.
