* DeviceLogix provides Novell iFolder as a managed service
Several years ago, I attended a private session at a conference where Drew Major – chief scientist at Novell at the time – demonstrated a cool new way to access your personal files from anywhere via the Internet. He showed how you could log on to a Web site from any PC and – boom – there were all your own files. There was no VPN, and no network connection other than the Internet. This was fairly revolutionary at the time.
This tool eventually came to market as Novell iFolder, and it lives up to the promise of delivering your files over the Internet. IFolder is a boon to workers who travel a lot, and to day-extenders who work from home after-hours and on weekends. When you are away from the normal office network, or move between PCs in different places, you can still get to important files.
Another group of people who really benefit from the convenience of iFolder are small office/home office (SOHO) workers. IFolder provides an important storage facility for individuals or companies that don’t have a network. Even if there is a network in the office, iFolder offers a completely transparent back-up solution for important files.
Any company with more than 200 or so employees is likely to deploy iFolder in-house. Such companies probably have an IT group that can install the software on a server and administer it for end users.
For SOHO customers, there’s the option of iFolder as a service. A company called DeviceLogix offers access to your own private iFolder file storage area for a nominal monthly fee. Pricing starts as low as $5 per month for 50M-bytes of space, with a $25 set-up fee.
DeviceLogix promotes the use of iFolder as a simple data back-up solution. In fact, it calls its service dlxEasyBackup. But it’s more than just a back-up service; you also can move large files around more efficiently than via e-mail or CD-ROM. In addition, multiple people can be set up to access one iFolder account, allowing for collaboration among people who don’t share a common network.
It’s incredibly easy to get started with dlxEasyBackup from DeviceLogix. Go to the Web site http://www.dlxEasyBackup.com and sign up for the service. You’ll download a small piece of software to the PCs from which you plan to access your iFolder. The software will configure itself and put an iFolder icon on your desktop. Then you can begin moving documents into the folder, either by using drag and drop or the “save as” feature and pointing to the iFolder folder. As you work with these files, they are automatically backed up to your online folder.
By installing the iFolder agent software on your home PC as well as your office PC, you can work from either location using the current files in your iFolder. Your files don’t get out of sync because you don’t create multiple copies.
The feature I like the best is that you can get to your files from any Internet-connected computer, whether it has the iFolder agent software installed or not. So, if you’re on the road without your own laptop, or if your hardware fails, you can still get to your data files. You do so by going to the dlxEasyBackup Web site and accessing member services. You log on to your account and within seconds gain access to your files.
DeviceLogix secures your files by using Novell’s iFolder technology, which has two levels of security. First, Novell eDirectory prevents unwanted access to an iFolder account. Second, iFolder uses Blowfish 128-bit key encryption to encrypt the actual files delivered over the Internet and while on the server. Only the owner of the file is able to decrypt and view the file. If you access files via the Web, SSL is also used.
I’ve been a user of dlxEasyBackup for a couple of weeks now, and it really couldn’t be simpler. I used to carry data home with me on a USB stick; now I just put files in my online folder and access them when I need them. Novell has a winner in iFolder, and DeviceLogix has created an easy and inexpensive service based on iFolder that’s very practical, indeed.
By the way, here’s a little side note for you. After I watched Drew Major’s demo of what would become iFolder, I asked him for an interview so I could write about this wonderful new tool. He declined, saying he didn’t want Microsoft to catch wind of what Novell was doing and steal the concept. Hmm, I wonder what made him think such a thing.
Linda Musthaler is vice president of Currid & Company. You can write to her at mailto:Linda.Musthaler@currid.com
