The IT Melting Pot!

This is a great addition I must say, but some things are missing!

One thing that I’m missing is the full integration with Azure storage containers! You still have to specify a temp/cache storage location that today ShareFile controller requires to be on a CIFS share when you have multiple controllers. And if you put the controller up in Azure as well, how do you then get that CIFS share and make it highly available? There is no CIFS exposure directly from the Azure storage, you have to setup a couple of VM’s in Azure, do something like DFS to expose is.. and then all of a sudden you have a whole file service to manage there as well.. and to monitor and all of a sudden you need AD and monitoring and reporting of it.. phuuu…

So I hope that in next version we can specify an Azure storage container for that cache/temp storage as well! 😉

The other thing I’d really like to see is NetScaler support in Azure, so that we could do proper AAA/CS/LB of the controllers in Azure as well so that we can get a simple and fully cloud based service in Azure! 🙂

BYOD and a growing global workforce are generating demand for instant access to data, offline productivity and seamless collaboration from anywhere. Organizations are challenged with reconciling these forces with leveraging existing investments, protect intellectual property and meet regulatory compliance requirements – driving interest in ShareFile StorageZones. StorageZones offers IT the flexibility to store data in secure Citrix-managed datacenters in multiple worldwide locations, or on-premise within their own datacenters.

At Citrix Synergy 2013, we announced new ShareFile StorageZones options with Microsoft Windows Azure. We are now pleased to announce the general availability of ShareFile StorageZones on Azure with the release of ShareFile StorageZones Controller software version 2.2. This release includes support for Windows Azure storage containers, therefore if you have a Windows Azure account, you can use an Azure storage container for your private data storage instead of a locally maintained share. Hosting ShareFile data natively in your Microsoft Azure account helps IT build the most cost-effective and customized solution for their organization. This customer-managed solution integrates ShareFile with Microsoft Azure’s Binary Large Object (Blob) storage, a cloud service for storing large amounts of unstructured data that can be accessed from anywhere in the world via HTTP or HTTPS.

Product Overview

Azure storage is customer-managed storage hosted in the Windows Azure cloud. File uploads are initially deposited into a temporary storage area shared by all StorageZone controllers. Then, a background service copies those files to the Windows Azure storage container and deletes the local cached copy of the file(s).

Typically with CIFS based StorageZones, the Controller servers are installed on-premise in the customer’s datacenter. However, if a customer is hosting virtual machines in Azure, they could install the StorageZone Controller software on instances running in their Azure account and not necessarily on-premise.

Read the ShareFile StorageZones on Azure Storage Technical Brief and watch the video Installing and Configuring ShareFile StorageZones v2.2 with Microsoft Azure to learn more about this solution.

Check out our Citrix and…

Continue reading here! 

//Richard