Hands on preview: Accellion Virtual Appliance
It's no mystery that e-mail systems can't handle easily numerous large attachments. Companies that need to transfer large files know all too well that crowding with large attachments an e-mail server is a poor solution that impairs the latter without improving much the delivery of the former, much like trying to pull a heavy trailer with a sport car. Alternative methods to transmit large files, FTP for example,
Follow @infoworldIt's no mystery that e-mail systems can't handle easily numerous large attachments. Companies that need to transfer large files know all too well that crowding with large attachments an e-mail server is a poor solution that impairs the latter without improving much the delivery of the former, much like trying to pull a heavy trailer with a sport car.
Alternative methods to transmit large files, FTP for example, are not as user friendly and have the additional disadvantage of requiring a different transmission path, separated from person-to-person messaging.
Accellion has been shipping for quite some time its Secure File Transfer Appliance (SFTA), an effective solution that combines the ease of use of e-mail attachments with efficient data transfers and robust monitoring and security features.
In addition to the applications installed on the appliance the Accellion solution includes an agent, unimaginatively named Attachments, that installed on users machines creates a seamless link between their e-mail client and the Web server present on the SFTA box.
At send time Attachments will automatically upload all attached files to the appliance, replacing each attachment with a link to its location. Along with those links, the recipient will find instructions on how to download the attachments, nice and easy.
Last week Accellion made available a virtual version of the appliance, the full name is Secure File Transfer Virtual Appliance (SFTVA), that installs as a virtual machine under VMware ESX or VMware Server.
The virtual appliance delivers the same functionality of the hardware based solution but has a sensibly lower entry price.
On the road to conversion
The actual delivery method of the virtual appliance to customers could be different but I received my evaluation copy as files attached to an e-mail message.
If Accellion wanted to impress me, they did. At about 360MB for the appliance image plus 4-5MB of documentation those attachments would never have been accepted by my corporate Exchange server.
On the contrary, that message was delivered to my inbox without hiccups because as shown below, it contained only secure links to those large files.
In fact, that message had added only a few KB to my e-mail server, leaving to me the choice of when physically move the files to my machine. It's also worth noting that as a recipient I only needed a browser and access to the Internet to retrieve my attachments.
