Overcome data sprawl coupled with employee sprawl with Storage Made Easy’s sophisticated multi-cloud data management and data protection

One of the most valuable resources for an organization is Data. It allows the business leader to make well-informed decisions, streamline processes, and understand the client base. However, in recent times, it has become even more difficult to manage data than ever before. Records and documents are scattered in clusters of filing cabinets, corporate intranets, emails, and servers. Businesses are now generating more data to keep with consumer expectations and creating the ‘data sprawl’ phenomenon. This occurs due to various enterprise software, storage systems, mobile apps, and data formats that every company is dependent on. Though massive amounts of data can help a company in terms of analytics, it is needed to be able to understand the data.

There are various companies specializing in providing smart data solutions, but one that stands out from the rest is Storage Made Easy. The company is a provider of enterprise software solutions for files and objects called The Enterprise File Fabric. It solves the enterprise data sprawl problem in which company data is located on-premises, a data center, and increasingly, the Cloud. The File Fabric provides a 'single pane of glass' that presents and secures data from over 60 files and object storage solutions, including CIFS/NAS/SAN, Amazon S3, Google Storage, and Microsoft Azure. No data is replicated or proprietized. Its metadata is smart-indexed, and this forms the basis of the File Fabric being able to provide secure sharing and collaboration, content search and PHI/PII discovery, and intelligent policy-based enforcement of data for compliance legislature such as GDPR / CCPA / HIPAA. M-Stream®, an exclusive feature of the File Fabric, also accelerates data to/from destinations up to 10x. FIPS-certified encryption ensures corporate file/object assets are protected in-flight and at-rest. The File Fabric enables a company to make an ROI return on its most important asset, its data. Storage Made Easy was founded in 2009, first shipped product in 2012, and it is based in Sutton, on the outskirts of London.

In conversation with Jim Liddle, Co-Founder and CEO of Storage Made Easy

Q. Access management and the privacy of sensitive information is a major consideration around cloud and hosted services. How can we overcome this issue?

Whether local or remote, access to resources should be plugged into existing enterprise user authentication solutions such as LDAP, AD, SAML so that there is a single cohesive approach to user identity and security. Sensitive information across all corporate data storage should be monitored in real-time to prevent inadvertent compliance breaches, which can be both costly and repudiatory to Companies.

Q. Tell us in brief about your data management system and compliance.

The Enterprise File Fabric™ simplifies data compliance and access with a single pane of control across on-premises and cloud, working with more than 60 data stores and applications. Best of breed technology enables companies to discover sensitive data, apply policies, and enforce security controls across all content, wherever it’s stored and, however, it’s used. A tamper-proof audit trail and real-time event monitoring of interest events add oversight that security teams and regulatory bodies require. Organizations also use the Enterprise File Fabric to enable local and remote employees to securely collaborate through a full suite of desktop, mobile and web applications. Employees no longer need to login on and out of third-party tools to work with data or with their partners. In addition to providing remote employee web-based access to
NAS/SAN/SMB/NFS data sets, the solution supports Object Storage particularly well, enabling end-users and legacy applications to interact with object storage through the File Fabric if it was a regular file system.

Q. Cloud services are expected to continue to play a vital role in the ingestion, computation, storage, and management of information. How do you interpret this?

Cloud services enable Company executives to accelerate the success of business strategies whilst mitigating infrastructure risk. The recent pandemic has strengthened a companies resolve in adopting/accelerating digital transformation.

Q. Targeted attacks, compromised infrastructure, are the two top risks for clients. How do you address these challenges with your solutions?

Infrastructure protection is in the main outside of the File Fabric's scope, whose main focus is to protect and secure data assets; however, the solution does have an intrusion prevention framework that attempts to mitigate the File Fabric from brute-force attacks.

Q. Modern cyberattacks are equally automated. How do you help organizations to fight fire with fire?

Many layers within the File Fabric can help protect a company's data. At the physical level, the product determines whether an inbound connection should be accepted. The product integrates with existing corporate Identity Access Management solutions such as LDAP, Active Directory, and SAML to validate user authentication at the authentication level. An additional Two Factor authentication module is also available to be activated for additional security. Once a user is authenticated, all user events are transparently audited and logged. File assets under management by the File Fabric are constantly monitored for PII / PHI information, and if detected, the assets are quarantined until they are effectively dealt with. The product can also replicate end-user data to a secondary, often cheaper, data store that can be used to restore data in a Ransomware attack quickly. Such features all occur transparently to end-user, whether they are working from the office or working from home.

Q. Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

We have just launched the Enterprise File Fabric on Amazon and Microsoft Azure marketplaces. The former is able to work with Amazon S3 object storage and Amazon FSx. The latter works with Azure, Blob Storage, and Azure Files. Companies can instantly launch our product on these PaaS style marketplaces providing secure, compliant data access to employees, whether in the office or working remotely.

Meet the leader behind the success of Storage Made Easy

Jim Liddle is the Co-Founder and CEO of Storage Made Easy. Prior to Storage Made Easy, Jim was European Sales and Operations Director for GigaSpaces after joining the company in 2006 to help expand its European operations. Before GigaSpaces Jim was the European General Manager for Versata, a NASDAQ listed business process and rules Management Company. During his 6 years at Versata, Jim also worked in technical, product management, and product marketing roles. Jim has extensive both sales and technical experience in Sales, Big Data, Middleware and Cloud technologies and has a track record of successfully growing sales for high growth technology companies over the last 20 years.

“The Enterprise File Fabric for Secure File Sharing provides multi-cloud content management solutions that can works with one storage solution or many.”