Sharing files beyond the LAN

[CAWJames]

Afternoon all,

 

We are about to embark on a project to give as much access to our network to our teams in the field as we can.

 

We are going to be issuing iPads and smart phones to them all, try to take a few steps out of the information process, eg, person takes a picture of an insurance certificate and emails it straight to our DMS, rather than photocopying it, faxing it or posting it, and all the many steps the manual process takes now.

 

My question is, is there a secure way for them to access their home shares over the internet on a mobile device without VPN?

 

Currently they have a "U:" drive mapped to their desktops held on a 2008R2 file server, this would be what we would want them access to, and maybe each centres general drive too.

 

We are looking at the Private APN approach, but that becomes useless when on someone else's wifi instead of the 3G. And some mobile devices don't give you windows folder share access anyway.

 

We could install VPN clients on the mobile devices or use built in VPN, but that could be clunky and end up in many phone calls that end "have you gone to the settings, network, vpn menu and turned your vpn on, etc"

 

I seem to remember back in the mid 2000's having a "Windows Storage Server Appliance" made by HP, that could share a folder as a webpage, is that still an option with the right firewall bricks removed?

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions,

 

James

[Steve21]

We are going to be issuing iPads and smart phones to them all, try to take a few steps out of the information process, eg, person takes a picture of an insurance certificate and emails it straight to our DMS, rather than photocopying it, faxing it or posting it, and all the many steps the manual process takes now.

 

....

 

I seem to remember back in the mid 2000's having a "Windows Storage Server Appliance" made by HP, that could share a folder as a webpage, is that still an option with the right firewall bricks removed?

 

The problem comes back to even with that setup, how do you get the photos from the iphone/pad onto the share?

 

There are many ways of sharing a folder that someone can log into from mobile devices, which is great to "view docs", as soon as you start trying to write back to it, you need to consider what apps lets you write back to the shares etc. As most save directly to the mobile device memory etc.

 

Steve

[CAWJames]

Writing back isn't so much of a problem, as photo's and data collected on the road will most likely be emailed to enabled mail addresses in our document management system, or sent straight to an administrator for filing.

 

The access of shares will mainly be for informational/reading purposes, ie being able to access a work based learning tutors private folder on a student on the go.

 

We use Canon's Therefore to hold all the documents on a student, BUT some keep their own set of documents or things that don't get archived for easy access on laptops. We are trying to stop the culture of hefting umpteen devices, laptops, portable printers and the like that they take around with them.

 

We envisage them rocking up with a tablet and/or a smartphone and doing all with things that can be pocketed(ok maybe not the tablet, but you get the idea).

 

In the future, when we have changed the way they work, all will be Therefore based, and shares wont need to be accessed so much, but for the time being, that's how it is.

 

And maybe one day, we wont have to buy 60 boxes of A4 a month, all will be tablet based. I can but dream!

 

thanks for the reply

 

James

[edutech4schools]

Google Apps, MS office 365, HomeAccess Plus (found on this site) would also do a similar task to the one your after.

[glennda]

Appsense datanow sync data from a file server to ipads/droid/mac and windows both online and offline

[CAWJames]

HomeAccess Plus looks very nice, might be worth having a play with that, although we are a non RM house, I'm sure I can wangle it somehow!

 

James

[edutech4schools]

HomeAccess Plus looks very nice, might be worth having a play with that, although we are a non RM house, I'm sure I can wangle it somehow!

Yep very good. I have it installed at a few schools.

[Duke5A]

HomeAccess Plus looks very nice, might be worth having a play with that, although we are a non RM house, I'm sure I can wangle it somehow!

 

James

 

We're running it too. While we're on a slightly older version (7.9), it runs great.