Very often, in the discussions we have with our clients, we come to the discussion about the server.
We decided to decode, since we are only at Koding, what people (in the exercise of the function) understand through the server.
There are several angles. Some imagine a big, black box, which most often makes a deafening noise and which is used to store the company's common documents. In many organizations, the "Common" folder is, as its name suggests, common. Most of the requests for servers for small companies actually encode another need: that of a common place, distributed among several employees, where to keep and find documents when we need them. Some ask for a server with Windows, others with Linux. Some want NAS-type solutions or regular computers running an (open source) version of Linux built for file management. Regardless of their cycle on the scale of understanding technology, this type of requirement is, I know you don't expect it?, common.
Another segment of our customers, I understand that the server is a box that costs quite a lot and with which the company's applications run.
There are a few more clients for whom the server is the service they pay for monthly. And, I know from my technical colleagues, it is located in a datacenter in Bucharest. Or Brașov. Or Cluj. It also depends on where the tectonic fault was placed in the “risk management” documents of the parent company?.
There are a few more philosophical approaches to servers, however, and we also like the angle of our friends at Bunnyshell. They understand by their own server any kind of virtual machine (or container) located in a cloud solution. Public or private. That matters even less. Whether it runs in AWS, Azure or AzureStack, this instance is a server.
Why do we write?
Because we want to solve pain points like: “we need to change our server”, “we need a new server”, “where the hell are those documents”, “I need a VPN to edit the document”, and others like that, we have good news. The majority (overwhelming, we would say) of our customers use Office 365 as a centralized solution for collaboration. The document storage part, whether private or for the entire team, works very well. We do it too. And we like it. Other great solutions are offered by Google (G Suite) or Dropbox. However, a good part of users prefer the classic solution. A “folder” that everyone can see, and each of them can organize their files and folders in the classic (tree) mode.
It's true, many common functionalities are missing in 2019: versioning, check in, check out, granular rights, AIP/RMS or others. On the other hand, we know that many of you don't use them anyway. Long live “adoption reporting tools”?. So, we have good news: why receive Ferrari cars, if you don't have a driver's license yet?! Koding has an effective solution: K-FS. The acronym of Coding File Server.
It doesn't take up space, doesn't require initial investment, doesn't have a long adoption period, doesn't cost a fortune. Implementation doesn't take 3 days (you can also read in the register 3 weeks), and scalability is (almost) unlimited. For those who are passionate, we also have a technical description. We didn't reinvent the wheel, we just simplify the technology and use our knowledge to find creative solutions suitable for various needs.
How we do it: we use distributed storage on cloud platforms (Microsoft Azure or Microsoft Azure Stack), we use an authentication and connection interface dedicated to each client and we take care of configuring the stations (notebook, desktop, workstation) of each user (manually, automatically or through a self-service guide). Finally, we do a short training, then you can start working. To protect this type of file server, we also recommend a backup product, which protects the data from a logical perspective (in case it is deleted by someone within the company, we can recover it from the backup configured for each client). If your organizational culture is based more on trust, there is no need for backup. The data is written simultaneously in 6 different locations of the same datacenter and this level of protection is sufficient for some.
Another cool thing: it doesn't matter what operating system you use. Whether you have Windows, like Apple, or are a Linux user, K-FS works for you too. All you need is a computer and an internet connection (quite simple and cheap in Romania, don't you think?).
Sounds good, but have you started thinking about budgets and other crazy things? We consider that, from a price perspective, the solution is super efficient for small data volumes. It starts at 19.99Eur/month (without any other cost) for a capacity of 100GB and includes both remote installation services for a maximum of 25 users. If you have more than 25 users, we can build you a personalized plan. And if you are among the first 5 customers, we also give you a discount of 50% for the first 3 months of the contract.
In conclusion, we say that we have the ideal solution for a team, a project or an entire organization that needs shared storage and that's it. We invite you to learn more on the dedicated page, and, if it sounds good to you, you know where to find us: Contact page. We take over from there (sales colleagues brag about having a lower SLA than technical ones). Test them!