Migrating an existing file server to the cloud is an important use case. This article talks about the Gladinet Cloud Server solution that can help migrating your file server content to cloud seamlessly.

The Challenges

Public cloud storage solutions have become increasingly convenient as they enable anywhere access to files and folders for web browsers, desktops and mobile devices, with sync and share capabilities. It is also very easy for team members to collaborate over the Internet.

However, your file server sitting in the office local area network (LAN) still provides the key file storage functionality and team collaboration functionality through network shares. You would like to adopt cloud storage technology and the new use cases it enables. But simply, you can't get rid of your file server. Additionally, you want to make your file server easily replaceable but it just has too much data to have an easy solution.

The situation is even more complicated when you have multiple file servers on multiple sites, where inter-site collaboration is desired.

The resulting challenge for large and small businesses is to provide convenient access methods to file server content over the Internet; and unifying the namespace from distributed file servers for central access, while at the same time, migrate file server content to cloud storage so the file server becomes increasingly replaceable.

Gladinet Solution

Gladinet Cloud Server provides a solution for the problems above by installing a piece of software to your file server. The cloud server software installed will intelligently manage local storage and cloud storage together to form a hybrid storage solution.

Benefit 1

You can attach local file server folders to the Gladinet Cloud account. After the storage is attached, it is accessible online, enabling web browser access and mobile access.

Benefit 2

For the attached local folder, the file server content will be migrated over time to cloud storage. When it is an enabling method for online access, it is also a backup process happening in the back ground.

Benefit 3

You can attach local folders from different file servers to your Gladinet Cloud. It is a global namespace unifies the different file servers into one single accessible folder structure, thus enabling multiple-site collaboration.

Implementation #1

Gladinet Cloud Server shall be installed on the file server that you would like to migrate to cloud over time. It supports Windows 2003/2008 (32-bit/64-bit).

The most common implementation is first acquiring a Gladinet Cloud Team account on www.gladinet.com. The Gladinet Cloud Server software comes with the Gladinet Cloud team account. You can then download and install Gladinet Cloud Server on your file servers. This way, Gladinet host the public cloud piece. You connect your file server to the Gladinet Cloud by using Gladinet Cloud Server.

Implementation #2

For ultimate security and control, you can deploy the Gladinet Cloud on-premise yourself so the cloud storage piece of the infrastructure is completely under your control. The Gladinet Cloud Enterprise product replicates all the functionality on the public Gladinet Cloud (www.gladinet.com) but it is an installable package that you can install on premise or in a DMZ zone. Please visit Gladinet Cloud Enterprise product page for this option. Gladinet Cloud Server package is included in the Gladinet Cloud Enterprise server package.

For more information, visit http://www.gladinet.com/cloudserver/