Replace your on-site file storage with OneDrive for Business & SharePoint

[IAMCloud_Leon]

Hi folks,

 

Do you have Office 365 in your organisation? Next question - are your users still using on-premises file storage for their home drives & file shares?

 

If the answer to these questions is yes. We (your friendly Office Software forum sponsors ) have a very handy utility called Cloud Drive Mapper https://www.iamcloud.com/cloud-drive-mapper that allows you to map drives to your OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online storage.

 

It allows you to properly adopt Office 365 storage, move a significant amount of your file storage into the cloud and reduces reliance and need for on on-prem servers, which can quite significantly reduce your costs.

 

Here are a few key facts & figures

 

 

• Cloud Drive Mapper is used across several hundred educational establishments (from small schools to large universities and trusts) with a total 1.1 million education users.
  
• It removes the file sync element of ODfB & SharePoint making it viable on multi-user computers and computers with small hard drive specs
  
• It works with ADFS (or alternatively IAM Cloud's own federation service) to provide SSO and automatically provision the drives on startup with no user intervention. Just like network file storage.
  
• Choice of EXE / MSI installers and is easily deployed to domain-joined workstations via AD GPO. It only takes a few minutes to configure and deploy, and we can help with the process.
  
• IAM Cloud is a MS Gold Partner and won Microsoft's Worldwide Education Partner of the Year award 2015/16 because of this feature
  
• Provided with a full service to help with implementation and ongoing support.
  
• Much more stable than the PowerShell drive mapping utilities, and is regularly updated and improved.
  
• It's significantly discounted to education (90% off) and has further volume discounts for large user bases
  

 

We provide no-obligation free trials, which are quick and easy to setup https://www.iamcloud.com/cloud-drive-mapper-trial-signup

 

If you're looking at ways to better adopt the cloud, get rid of some on-site infrastructure, and reduce some costs - this is a quick easily-affordable win.

 

PS Google G-Suite version is complete, just finalising testing. Watch this space.

[pcstru]

Could you give indicative costs on this per user please?

[IAMCloud_Leon]

Could you give indicative costs on this per user please?

Yep, sure. The price is 9p per user per month (before any volume discounts).

[thimon]

We've got OneDrive mapped via PowerShell but are looking at migrating our File Server to OneDrive, have PM'd Leon to see if they can help and at what cost. Or have you guys on here had any luck migrating Homedrives to OneDrive?

[dhicks]

PS Google G-Suite version is complete, just finalising testing. Watch this space.

 

Does the client work on Mac OS?

 

Google Drive support - will it support Team Drives?

 

Does adding or updating a file via your client properly trigger Google Drive file / folder update watches (I imagine it would, but worth double-checking)?

 

9p per user per month - for 150 staff and 400 pupils that's £600-ish per year, not bad, especially if it saves us having to bother with a local storage server.

[tj2419]

Google Drive support - will it support Team Drives?

 

Would also be interested in this.

 

9p per user per month - for 150 staff and 400 pupils that's £600-ish per year, not bad, especially if it saves us having to bother with a local storage server.

 

I think there is a minimum contract price of £1500. We were looking at the system last year before the minimum price was introduced but now cannot afford it

[IAMCloud_Leon]

We've got OneDrive mapped via PowerShell but are looking at migrating our File Server to OneDrive, have PM'd Leon to see if they can help and at what cost. Or have you guys on here had any luck migrating Homedrives to OneDrive?

 

Hey - I'm afraid we don't provide a file migration tool/service at the moment, but there are a couple of tools that can make it easier: Microsoft provide their own and, the market leader in migration tools are Bit Titan who have a tool for File Server -> ODfB, that utilises Azure blob storage as a middleware. Bit Titan (MigWiz) might be a little bit pricey though - I'm not sure how generous their education discount might be though. We also have a partner here in the UK called Fuse Collaboration that specialise in Office 365 migrations - including files to ODfB, who we've worked with on a few projects in the past.

[IAMCloud_Leon]

Would also be interested in this. I think there is a minimum contract price of £1500. We were looking at the system last year before the minimum price was introduced but now cannot afford it

 

That minimum price only applies when you take the full IAM Cloud identity and access platform as part of the package. Unfortunately the running costs of the platform and the service we run around it means that we can't go lower than 1500 - but if you were wanting Cloud Drive Mapper as a stand-alone application then we don't need to impose the same minimum pricing.

[IAMCloud_Leon]

Does the client work on Mac OS?

Google Drive support - will it support Team Drives?

Does adding or updating a file via your client properly trigger Google Drive file / folder update watches (I imagine it would, but worth double-checking)?

9p per user per month - for 150 staff and 400 pupils that's £600-ish per year, not bad, especially if it saves us having to bother with a local storage server.

 

Working on Mac version as we speak. So that will be coming soon along with Google G-Suite compatibility. Yes to Google's Team Drives. Will have to double check re: Google Drive File/Folder update watches, but it's API based so I imagine it will.

[tj2419]

but if you were wanting Cloud Drive Mapper as a stand-alone application then we don't need to impose the same minimum pricing.

 

Ah, you've got my attention again Any update on a release date for Google Drive Mapping, will it support just personal drives or a facility similar to the sharepoint shared drives using team drives? Thanks

[ITGURU]

All good and well if you 100% uptime on the internet? I'll be sticking with local file storage for the foreseeable future!

[Jaymate]

So is there no minimum if you just use the cloud drive mapper?

[pcstru]

All good and well if you 100% uptime on the internet?

Given the increasing importance of the internet, it is surely a service that we look to be reliable and resilient. So in terms of value vs risk, we may now be getting to or at the point where it is as viable to invest in that as it is to invest in reliable, resilient local storage. The problem might then shift to bandwidth capacity; if all your students hit save file at around the same time (end of lesson), how well does the overall system cope with such peaks? Has that introduced a new need to pro-actively manage bandwidth (new skills and systems)?

 

I've recently been looking at a friends needs for his small business and O365 vs the cost of replacing SBS (Small Business Server) looks quite substantial (~50% reduction for going cloud, which surprised me). Our school has efficiencies of scale that they don't but even so, I can't see local hosting hanging on that much longer.

[IAMCloud_Leon]

So is there no minimum if you just use the cloud drive mapper?

 

Hey, there would still be a minimum, just a lower minimum depending on the complexity of deployment and level of support required by the customer organisation. We provide an ongoing support service and we help with implementation, so it's not possible for us to do this with a single user (at £1.08 per year) for example.

[2ilent8cho]

Working on Mac version as we speak.

 

Now you have my attention...... OneDrive client is fine on the Staff Macbooks, but in the IT Labs with students its useless, this might be what we need.

[ultima170387]

Hey, there would still be a minimum, just a lower minimum depending on the complexity of deployment and level of support required by the customer organisation. We provide an ongoing support service and we help with implementation, so it's not possible for us to do this with a single user (at £1.08 per year) for example.

 

What Is the minimum just for cloud drive mapper?

[Paid_Peanuts]

Also when is support coming for Google Drive - stop avoiding the question...

[thimon]

What Is the minimum just for cloud drive mapper?

Just use PowerShell script on logon

[win]

Can you provision the onedrive accounts prior to them logging in?

 

If not, do they have to log in via a PC or can it be via the onedrive app (android / ios)?

[dhicks]

allows you to map drives

 

Can it map user home folders / desktops on Windows (and, when the Mac version is ready, Macs)? So when the user logs in, the files they see in their Desktop and My Documents folders are actually from live Office 365 / Google Drive folders?

[IAMCloud_Leon]

What Is the minimum just for cloud drive mapper?

 

Hi, as mentioned above it does depend a bit on the complexity of the environment and deployment given we support the whole process, some deployments are quick and straightforward, others sometimes need some added configuration to integrate with different ADFS/AD infrastructure models, but default Cloud Drive Mapper minimum is £999.

[IAMCloud_Leon]

Also when is support coming for Google Drive - stop avoiding the question...

Hi, definitely not avoiding the question. Not sure anyone in the thread so far has asked it We've done most the development. Google Drive works in a fundamentally different way to Office 365 so it's had to be completely re-architected. There are a couple of final bugs we're fixing at the moment that we picked up in the test phase. It's a priority for us, so we have a dedicated team on it at the moment wrapping up the loose ends, so it shouldn't be longer than 4 weeks until it's ready for public launch.

[IAMCloud_Leon]

Just use PowerShell script on logon

Worthwhile noting that this is reliant on some technology Microsoft is known to want to deprecate in its drive to push everything through Office 365's GraphAPI. I'd advise caution, and for you to keep an eye on that else you might get a nasty surprise.

[IAMCloud_Leon]

Can you provision the onedrive accounts prior to them logging in?

Yes, we can, it's one of the options in the Cloud Drive Mapper config that you can enable auto provisioning of OneDrive as the user logs in for the first time. It's quite neat.

[IAMCloud_Leon]

Can it map user home folders / desktops on Windows (and, when the Mac version is ready, Macs)? So when the user logs in, the files they see in their Desktop and My Documents folders are actually from live Office 365 / Google Drive folders?

At the moment Cloud Drive Mapper uses 'drives' specifically as a mechanism to integrate with the cloud storage. However we've noted requests from customers to be able to do this with specific folders. It's on our roadmap but I'm afraid I'd not want to give you any dates as to when this will be complete at this time, as we have a few other priorities at the moment. Regarding My Documents, there is a folder auto-forwarding function in registry that can achieve this for you. We've actually successfully achieved this in our test environments with Cloud Drive Mapper. It has a few caveats around its use though - as the first time it works, it actually does an auto-migration of the My Documents folder to OneDrive. This is actually pretty cool, BUT if it was done in an uncontrolled fashion it could really hammer your bandwidth. If you want to have a chat about it then get in touch [email protected] and I could schedule a meeting with someone who can talk about this in a little more detail?

 

I'd not like to commit to an answer with Macs just yet. At the moment we're working towards mapping to mounted drives, but wider than that it could well be possible. I think we'd probably need to do some more research first.