An article in GigaOM citing new research by Unisys on the consumerization of IT recently piqued my interest.   According to the research, IT pros underestimate the use of consumer technologies in the workplace by a whopping 50%.  In fact, IT decision-makers gave themselves a rating of only 2.9 for overall support of employee owned mobile devices, social applications and integration of social apps with enterprise applications.  According to Isabella Mark, director of Global Solution Management at Unisys, IT is falling behind in addressing and benefiting from consumer technologies due to the sheer volume they now have to deal with.  Each new technology that employees bring into the workplace is another technology that IT needs to figure out how to use, manage, or perhaps even ban.

For many, Dropbox represents the poster child for the consumerization of IT.  Free and easy to get your hands on, the Dropbox consumer file sharing app has spread like wild fire through organizations.  And now IT and security teams are grappling with how to deal with the security risks of unmanaged, untracked file sharing of enterprise data via personal Dropbox accounts.  Learn more about the privacy concerns of consumer file sharing apps that stem from the consumerization of IT in our latest whitepaper, “Beyond Dropbox: Requirements of Enterprise Class Secure File Sharing.”  While Accellion’s solutions are enterprise-class, they are created for ease-of-use, and also provide the security and management that IT requires.

Stillman, J. (2011, November 18). Consumerization study: It pros swamped, behind on mobile. Retrieved from http://gigaom.com/collaboration/consumerization-study-it-pros-swamped-behind-on-mobile/

In 2010, Oracle surveyed more than 3,000 people from around the globe to discover how people communicate. The overwhelming response was mobile, mobile, mobile. In 2011, Oracle conducted a second survey calling it The Future of Mobile Communications-Take Two. This upgraded report delivered interesting results about mobile phone usage and the perceptions of mobile devices.

I don’t think we have to discuss the “bring your own device” (BYOD) trend or the fact that employees are using mobile devices to share files & access business applications. The lightning fast proliferation of data hungry users is the thing that organizations and IT managers are trying to manage. The respondents of Oracle’s 2011Future of Mobile Communications-Take Two report confirm that these trends are permanent. That’s bad news for our telephone booth frequenting super hero.

How data hungry were the users from the survey? Over the past year alone, mobile data usage increased 47%. Even more remarkable is the fact that 55% of those surveyed reported having downloaded a mobile app, up significantly from 42% in 2010.  The most dangerous threats posed by downloaded mobile apps are well-documented in Veracode’s Mobile app top 10 list. Even more notable was the fact that 25% of mobile web users are mobile only.

When respondents were asked if they think that information stored or transmitted with a mobile device is secure, the results were disproportionate. Thirty-two percent of those asked thought their information was secure. Sixty-eight percent said that they didn’t think the information stored or transmitted with a mobile device was secure.

People can be their own worst enemy when it comes to security.  Ten percent of all iPhone users have 0000 or 1234 as a device password. The fact that there are mobile data security programs available and not being used is indefensible.

For all these reasons, mobile devices are the most popular target for data theft.  In several upcoming blog posts we will discuss some Dos and Don’ts of mobile device security and take a closer look at mobile security compliance.

Nagar, M. (Designer). (2011). Introduction and evolution. [Web Graphic]. Retrieved from http://www.bluegenietech.com/blog/tag/history-of-mobiles/

Who would have thought that the novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, an English literature staple for English schoolchildren, was not only the idea behind the popular TV series “Lost”, but also provides important parallels to the story currently unfolding of enterprise file sharing gone wild.  In the Lord of the Flies the attempts by the group of British schoolboys to govern themselves when stranded on a deserted island is in some ways akin to how business users are today attempting to govern their file sharing when deserted by IT.

The major themes of the Lord of the Flies include an exploration of the conflicts of civilization and the loss of innocence, both of which seem applicable to the current conflict of business user vs. IT in the world of enterprise file sharing.  While the novel, and even the TV show, may be rather more graphic on the conflict of living by rules vs. savagery, valuing the good of the group vs. individual gratification and exploring law vs. anarchy perhaps some good lessons can be learned?  Just how would Ralph, Jack, Simon and Piggy, the main characters in Lord of the Flies have handled file sharing?

Ralph, the elected leader of the group, the representative of order, civilization and productivity, thinks about how the boys should organize themselves and get to work to maximize their chance of survival and rescue.  Is Ralph perhaps the CIO figure?  Would Ralph, the CIO, be taking charge, implementing an enterprise file sharing solution so business users can not only survive and can get their jobs done, but also stay out of trouble.

Jack, the opposite of Ralph, the character representing savagery not civilization, demonstrates how he can use his savagery to control the boys who increasingly abandon civilization to follow him.  Hmmmm… not sure about this Jack character, although we have all seen business users do things they shouldn’t.

Simon, is the character who just does what is right not because of Ralph or Jack’s influence, but just because he knows it is the right thing to do.  This would be the business user every organization would like to have.

Piggy, the inventor and intellectual, uses his inventiveness to benefit the group.  It is Piggy who initially finds a conch and blows it to bring all the boys together on the island and Piggy who makes a sundial so they can tell the time.  Piggy, in the world of enterprise file sharing would have early on blown the conch he discovered, to alert IT and Security teams that they needed to work together to give business users a way to share files securely.  Piggy would also be the one to design and implement the system.

So how does this story end?  In Lord of the Flies, the boys are eventually rescued and returned to civilization, but not without some casualties.  The adult who steps onto the island does remark that he would have expected better from British boys!

How does the story end in enterprise file sharing?  I’m betting on the Ralphs and Simons of the world to give this story a happy ending.

Accellion is participating at the Gartner Portals, Content and Collaboration (PCC) Summit this week as part of the launch of our new Secure Collaboration Solution.

A couple of interesting takeaways from the first day of the Gartner Summit:

Hybrid cloud deployments will be the norm for enterprise deployments of portals, content and collaboration as enterprise organizations balance security and cost management. Accommodating the security requirements of different geographies, users and information sensitivity means public cloud only solutions are not viable for most enterprise organizations.  This was good to hear given Accellion’s breadth of on-premise and in-the-cloud public, private and hybrid deployment options for secure collaboration and file transfer.

The real value of enterprise content is when it is in-motion being shared with people inside and outside the organization. Enterprise content management systems represent content at rest, which for most organizations is a cost. When this content is shared as part of a business process in the form of legal contracts, product designs, sales proposals, then it generates value for the organization. Sounds good to us, since Accellion is all about sharing information securely.

More today at the conference on the mobile worker and the social enterprise.  Accellion iPhone and iPad app demo got a good workout yesterday at the Exhibit – devices are both recharged for today.

What are the 3 surefire ways to kill a cloud project:

1. Not understanding compliance
2. Betting on the wrong horse
3. Not including IT

Thanks to David Linthicum for his recent excellent short article “3 surefire ways to kill a cloud project.”

These 3 cloud killers are particularly relevant to deployment of secure file transfer in the cloud.  I thought it would be worth reviewing how Accellion defends against these cloud killers:

1. Not understanding compliance – It’s all about compliance

From Accellion’s perspective it’s all about compliance.  Ensuring compliance is foremost in any secure file transfer deployment, whether it be on-premise or in-the-cloud.  Since Accellion secure file transfer deployments can span on-premise and in-the-cloud we have implemented comprehensive data protection features to provide the control, tracking and reporting necessary to demonstrate compliance.

• Data in Motion - To protect the data moving through the Accellion secure file transfer system Accellion provides not only business level authentication but also encryption for data in motion.  Data is transferred using the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol including 128 bit encryption, and Accellion includes additional file encryption capabilities before upload using the AES 128 bit encryption scheme.
• Data at Rest - Accellion provides disk encryption using 128 bit encryption to protect stored data. File names are de-referenced when stored by the Accellion secure file transfer system to ensure that files are inaccessible on the server.

2. Betting on the wrong horse – Betting on the right horse

Accellion utilizes the Amazon Web Services AWS Cloud Computing Platform to deliver our hosted Cloud Accellion Secure File Transfer service.  We picked Amazon Cloud because of its SAS70 Type II Certified Data Centers, 99.5% annual uptime service levels and its global distribution of data centers designed to anticipate and tolerate failure while maintaining service levels.  We think we are betting on the right horse, however we also give our customers the option to deploy Accellion secure file transfer in the cloud of their choice, either public or private.

3. Not including IT – Including IT

Accellion believes that ensuring data security and compliance should not be left to business users.  We don’t support adoption of rogue applications, in fact we think they are particularly hazardous for file transfer. Allowing business users to utilize free online file sharing services provides no visibility or control of the flow of enterprise information. At Accellion we work closely with IT organizations to deploy secure file transfer systems and provision business users to keep enterprise data transfer safe.

Thanks again David for the tips on staying away from 3 common cloud killers.

I read an interesting blog post recently entitled “Three Ways to Market Nostalgia in Social Communities.” As someone who has enjoyed more than a few good moments of nostalgia I thought maybe this topic would provide fertile ground for discussion.  Apparently products from the past are in vogue, such as retro versions of Pepsi and Coke, but does this have any relevance to IT?

While I can understand someone enjoying the nostalgic connection with Frosted Flakes’ Tony the Tiger saying “They’re Gr-r-reat!” is there anyone out there yearning for the days of 20,000 vacuum tubes and the Eniac Computer or the FORTRAN computer language or the Pong computer game – okay on the last one I admit a small tinge of nostalgia.  Is there anything we miss about the past in IT? Computer Cards, Room-size computers, the floppy disk?

And by inference does this mean that everything new in IT is good?  One of the challenges with IT is the pace of progress.  Products and technologies are being rapidly superceded so where does that leave the IT staff and the vendors who are trying to keep pace?

At Accellion we have experienced first hand the widespread adoption of virtual and cloud environments and the rapidly changing landscape for IT deployments.  Since we introduced the industry’s first virtual appliance for secure file transfer back in November 2007, now more than 80% of Accellion secure file transfer deployments are into virtual environments.  Originally we supported just VMware, and have since added support for Citrix XenServer and also most recently Microsoft Hyper-V.  And we see the same steep adoption curve happening this year with cloud deployments.

Today, deployment of Accellion secure file transfer can take just minutes and that’s a good thing for everyone. Some of our earliest customers from 2005 and 2006 are now replacing their original Accellion physical appliances with virtual and/or cloud deployments – it’s great to see them enjoying a whole new flavor of Accellion.

Are we nostalgic for the time when we were on first name terms with the FedEX guy, shipping large volumes of physical servers out to our customers – no way.

Check out these charts on the rise of cloud computing from GigaOm. It’s the last figure entitled “Projected Storage Shortage by 2020″ that really grabbed my attention.  In 2009 30% of the digital content created could not be accommodated in the cloud, by 2020 that number is expected to rise to 60% shortage.  Sounds like it is time to start issuing ration books for storage or to change our ways.

It’s surprising that the projected shortage of cloud storage hasn’t got more attention but perhaps it’s a topic akin to discussing the drought in California while it’s raining – not too many interested listeners.  For many organizations moving to the cloud, it offers the opportunity to tap into unlimited computing power and storage – well maybe not quite unlimited.

Somehow I don’t think the rate of creation of digital data is going to slow (check out Data Tsunami – 5 Exabytes of Data Created Every 2 Days?) but we certainly could do a better job of managing the storage of data. Many of today’s IT systems are designed as if storage grew on trees.  In some cases it’s the system that is wasteful and in some cases it’s the user who is wasteful.

In the world of email attachments we have wastage on both fronts, but if I had to pick sides, the users are probably the worst offenders.  At least with email systems, IT administrators can put limits on the size of individual mailboxes and on the size of email attachments that can be attached.  Unfortunately these constraints can make it impossible for a user to get their job done.  Email attachment limits are the IT equivalent of flow control valves on showerheads and toilets. While they constrict the flow which is good, they also prevent people from getting done what they need to, which is bad. You have to shower longer to rinse the soap off, the kids now flush the toilet twice, and your users go off looking for IT workarounds for file transfer.

One of the most popular features of Accellion secure file transfer is the automatic file cleanup, which means that file storage is rarely an issue with Accellion.  Files transferred via Accellion are available for a specified period of time, typically 14 to 30 days.  After that it’s “Hasta la vista” and the file is automatically deleted.

So our Accellion tip for today is – if email storage has got to the point where you are considering ration books it might be time to consider a solution for those email attachments – it’s called Accellion.

Other related blog posts

Do These Files Make My Email Look Big?

10MB Email Attachments Heading for Extinction

Last week I joined over 1,000 IT professionals at the 2010 Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit in the Washington DC metro area.

Security in the cloud was a major theme during the conference. Interestingly while security was identified in recent Gartner surveys as the number one concern for companies moving to cloud computing, it isn’t stopping people moving to the cloud. The large majority of corporations surveyed expected to have systems running in the cloud very soon.  It seems the benefits are so compelling there is little foot-dragging on this score.

Another interesting topic raised during the conference was that despite all the millions of dollars invested in securing corporate networks and assets, it is often the non-technological leak that causes damage; typically an inadvertent mistake by an insider.  The example discussed was the security hazards of using removable media ie a thumb drive, to move files. Now that example really hit home.

All in all it was a good conference – so thanks Gartner for putting together a good program.

Gary Rogers

Senior VP Worldwide Sales

Yet again, ash clouds from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland are seriously affecting airline traffic, with Heathrow airport closed again this morning. Over the past few weeks millions of passengers - and important documents – have been stranded across Europe and the world.

Clyde & Co. LLP, a leading international law firm based in London, recently purchased the Accellion secure file transfer solution to ensure safe delivery of sensitive documents and avoid paying courier charges.  They had originally chosen an Accellion hardware appliances but then fate intervened: Clyde & Co. ran into problems thanks to the flight disruptions caused by the Icelandic volcano: it wasn’t only passengers that were struggling to get home, the Accellion appliance could not be delivered by FedEx either.

But it got worse than that. The continuing disruption also meant that courier companies couldn’t deliver legal documents to Clyde & Co’s clients either – a major disruption of service for a legal company.

Clyde & Co. IT manager, Phil Newnham, called Accellion for urgent help and while we couldn’t charter a plane, we set up a hosted Accellion cloud appliance and within minutes Clyde & Co. was able to send confidential legal documents. Clyde & Co. files were flying again.

Even volcanoes can’t stop Accellion.

Email in the Cloud is forcing organizations to think more dynamically about email migrations.

Enterprises need to rethink their email migration strategies to respond to the growing reality of email deployments in the cloud. Business email is in transition. Traditionally, email vendors such as Microsoft and IBM have rolled out major releases every couple of years.  Each new release giving customers a new reason to migrate. However, there is a larger trend on the horizon – corporate email moving into the cloud.

Google Apps, Microsoft BPOS and IBM Lotus Live are making hosted business email a viable option for companies of all sizes and in all industries. As business email transitions to the cloud, email migration needs are changing as well. IT managers are now expected to respond to the new reality that email migrations are no longer a scheduled one-time project for the entire organization. Email migrations are becoming more dynamic.

What do organizations need to do to respond to this new dynamic migration environment?   Enterprises will need to be nimble, agile and flexible as the migration process is no longer a one-time project.  Going forward, email migrations can be tailored by department or group of users to accommodate specific needs.

Regardless of whether the email migration is for an entire organization or for a department, IT managers can turn the complex migration to simpler departmentalized tasks by implementing policies to limit the amount of data that flows through the email servers. Ask us how? http://www.accellion.com/solutions/it/email-migration

–Sunita Reddy