EMC Melds Syncplicity Enterprise Cloud File Sharing with On-Premise Storage

EMC took the wraps off its “best of all worlds” approach to enterprise file sharing over the cloud. The new offering involves technology from one of the company’s most notable acquisitions of 2012.

EMC acquired Syncplicity, an enterprise cloud file sharing specialist that emphasizes security and enterprise-grade management, in May. The firm was founded in 2008 by ex-Microsoft execs Leonard Chung and Ondrej Hrebicek and has attracted over 25,000 customers, including tech titans Google and IBM.

Today, EMC is giving the industry a look of what embracing the cloud can look like for storage administrators by bringing Syncplicity’s technology to the realm of on-premise storage.

EMC’s Jeffrey Schultz, head of marketing at Syncplicity, told InternetNews, “We’re announcing the ability to move the data layer on-premise.” Starting today, EMC Isilon NAS and EMC Atmos customers can enable mobile and remote file access, sharing and syncing without giving up control of their data or subject sensitive corporate info to the whims of third party cloud data center operators.

Today’s users are storing and sharing more data than ever, according to EMC.

By the company’s estimates, enterprise users carry 20 to 30 GBs worth of files on their PCs and mobile devices. Complicating matters is the rise of corporate cultures that prize collaboration and social enterprise ideals, making file sharing a veritable necessity to getting work done.

And that poses a challenge for security conscious IT executives and storage administrators.

Sam Grocott, vice president of Marketing at EMC Isilon, said that integrating Syncplicity’s tech into Isilon and Atmos alleviates a big worry for IT managers. For example, he offers, “they are concerned with home directory files leaking into online file sharing services.”

Once a file hits the cloud, an administrator “loses control of the data right there,” warned Grocott.

Extending Syncplicity support to Isilon at Atmos alleviates this for EMC shops by seamlessly folding cloud file sharing and syncing capabilities into existing — and presumably secure — on-premise storage management ecosystems, according to EMC executives. In short, the cloud acts as a transport mechanism, not as a big hard drive in the sky.

Moreover, administrators can preserve existing file access and policy controls, notably Active Directory single-sign, while enabling new functionality like smart remote file wiping options that target only business data. “At the end of the day, we’re making sure that you’re only wiping the data that’s corporate owned and corporate managed,” added Leonard Chung, chief product strategist for Syncplicity.

An added benefit of extending Syncplicity support to EMC on-premise storage is that it is an “end-to-end single vendor solution,” added Schultz.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Internet News, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.