When Egnyte, a Seagate Cloud Builder Alliance partner, unveiled its new mobile apps a few weeks ago, it gave an immediate boost to enterprises that are seeking a safe way to handle bring-your-own-device initiatives. Egnyte’s solutions for iOS and Android made it possible for employees to securely get to company files even while working remotely, giving them “the speed and security of local storage with the accessibility of the cloud.”
In an article for IT Pro Portal, Paul Cooper highlighted the importance of secure file access for increasingly mobile enterprise employees. A late October storm caused significant damage in Wales and England, bringing down telephone lines and disrupting transportation. As a result, many workers had to stay home.
Normally, these work-from-home situations would exacerbate the mobility risks that enterprises already face. Employees may be more likely to rely on consumer-grade hardware and cloud services at home, and this behavior could result in data leakage. When they take these devices to work, they create additional threats to company cloud infrastructure.
However, Egnyte’s mobile apps create a secure channel that extends from the smartphone or tablet all the way to the sensitive assets kept behind the company firewall. Accordingly, they neutralize the data access risks that typically surround BYOD initiatives and give companies more flexibility in how they store and distribute files. By making BYOD safer, these solutions could also foster better employee productivity.
“Companies want employees to be happy, and BYOD is part of that movement,” Dell SecureWorks technology director Don Smith told IT Pro Portal. “Employees wish to have greater flexibility to meet their individual needs, and BYOD can bring greater employee satisfaction and productivity.”
The cloud has enabled many new workflows, especially on mobile devices. Vendors like Egnyte are leading the way in ensuring that enterprises can benefit from these opportunities while maintaining security.
