Many organisations saw the GDPR regulations last year as the nudge they needed to finally cut their ties with pendrives and other USB storage devices (if they hadn’t already). The obvious answer: moving file storage to the cloud. The less obvious answer: how to do it.
The upgrade path from USB and on-premises storage to the cloud has a couple of stumbling blocks. Firstly, how do you move your existing storage to the cloud in the first place? If you’re a large enough organisation you’ll probably look at various software tools and professional services to do this for you. If you’re a small enough organisation you might just be able to do it manually… Bit of a pain, but worth it in the end.
The second stumbling block is how your users access the storage. How do make the transition to the cloud but keep the user experience the same?
Cloud storage is typically accessed in two ways:
1) Through a browser, which is a pretty big change to user experience and quite clunky in the eyes of many users.
2) Through full or selective file sync. While selective sync is a bit better than full sync, it still has the fundamental problem of allowing corporate data (which is likely to have sensitive or personal data) to be saved on local devices. In short, you’ve moved away from local USB storage, but even though you’re “in the cloud” you are still using local storage. You’ve gone full circle and are pretty much back at the original problem again.
So what is the real solution?
This -> Cloud Drive Mapper, which enables cloud storage to be mapped as a drive. It allows you to use cloud storage (OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online right now) in the same way that you use network storage.
So you can have, for example:
O:\ mapped to OneDrive for Business
E:\ mapped to your whole company SharePoint Online library
Z:\ mapped to a specific department SharePoint Online library
There is no sync, just direct access. Your users will intuitively use the storage exactly the same way they’ve used storage for the past 20-odd years (depending on how old your users are of course).
Cloud Drive Mapper is a popular low-cost utility that can bring a big cost-saving to your organisation, while increasing cloud adoption and avoiding risks associated with GDPR. And it’s IT friendly, so the deployment is easy and works seamlessly with Active Directory GPO as well as other orchestration tools.
Even if you abandoned USB storage years ago and have made the move to the cloud already, Cloud Drive Mapper can make accessing the cloud nice and easy for your users - making the more productive. They can keep their desktop shortcuts, legacy applications will be able to use the storage as if it were local, and you can even have folder redirection from your Windows profile folders going into the cloud too.
In just 2.5 years, Cloud Drive Mapper has grown its userbase to over a million people across more than 1000 organisations, and you can try it for free here: https://www.iamcloud.com/cloud-drive-mapper-trial-signup