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Cynergy Financial Using Egnyte Cloud Storage Hybrid

For a financial services firm concerned about accessing files over the internet, a local network-attached storage setup that replicates data to Egnyte's cloud offers an answer.

Egnyte introduced cloud-based storage in February that gives firms a storage-as-a-service option for sharing files among several locations over the internet for a flat monthly fee. Although thousands of customers small and large subscribe to the service, according to Vineet Jain, CEO, a few have expressed concerns about an inability to access data without internet access, the potential latency of accessing large files over the internet, and security. "There are a lot of great things about cloud computing, but some people are just not comfortable with their data residing on someone else's server," notes Jain. This week, Egnyte introduced a cloud/internal storage hybrid; files are saved to a local, off-the-shelf network-attached storage system and continuously replicated to Egnyte's cloud.

One user of this service (but using an earlier version that uses direct attached storage for the local cloud rather than the network-attached storage feature announced this week) is Cynergy Financial, a financial services company based in Pleasant Hill, Calif., that develops tax planning strategies, estate plans and financial plans primarily for the owners of closely held private corporations. Its planners use mainly Microsoft applications and typically generate 40-50 documents per client within the first two years of the relationship.

The firm chose this cloud hybrid storage service to provide all staff members access to the same files. "As the business owner and client relationship manager, my job never stops," says Michael Steller, principal and president. "Therefore, I need the most efficient way to also work remotely. The ability to instantly access a client file at a moment's notice upon receiving a cell phone call at home from a client has truly been wonderful."

The local cloud allows Steller to access to files even if the internet access is down. "One incident of not being able to access my files would blow the whole deal for me," he notes. "The local cloud synchronization solves that issue."

The new service synchronizes access permissions from the online cloud locally into a NAS device, allowing users to access files locally with the same level of security as they would on the online cloud. Egnyte can also integrate with existing directory services like Active Directory or LDAP. It also provides lightweight rights management, allowing content authors to assign read, write and edit permissions to files.

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