January 28, 2008
Solving the File-Transfer Problem
Sending and receiving attachments in e-mail can be a nightmare, especially when dealing with hefty files. Pepperdine University’s chief information officer found a solution to this problem in Accellion — a company that touts itself as a more effective alternative to in-house File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers run in IT departments.
The clincher, says Timothy M. Chester, the university’s chief information officer, was the price tag. “They essentially changed their licensing model,” he says. “It didn’t require us to buy an additional license for each student.”
Chester says Accellion was the only company at which the school took a serious look, conducting a trial run.
But with the original licensing model, the school would have had to buy over 10,000 additional licenses, on top of the 1,500 for faculty and staff.
“It was cost prohibitive,” he says.
Chester also says that Pepperdine’s deal with Accellion led the company to offer free inclusion of students in licensing agreements with universities across the globe.
While this apparently was a good solution for Pepperdine (and Harvard, according to Accelion’s Web site), it can’t be the only answer.
Are there better ways to handle the “huge attachment in e-mail” problem? —Hurley Goodall
Posted on Monday January 28, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Last week I received a couple of files from someone who used email for a mass distribution to several hundred faculty and staff.
We have a Web server and an intranet site, of course.
Of course, there’s Microsoft SharePoint and any number of open source systems.
But users have to learn to use these systems. They “know” how to use email.
— Bill Sodeman Jan 28, 04:58 PM #
We just use Horde.org’s “attach as link” feature.
Instead of attaching the file to the e-mail, it stores it on a web server with an obfuscated name and puts a link to that file in the e-mail.
The only downside is that it either eventually uses a lot of disk space or you have to expire the links.
— Ethan Sommer - Gustavus Adolphus College Jan 28, 05:15 PM #
Xythos, which we use in support of research collaborations, some courses, and in conjunction with our Blackboard CMS, has a very nice feature for handling this, several options, and our researchers like it a lot.
BN, Academic Technologies, Northwestern University
— Brian Nielsen Jan 28, 06:16 PM #
http://www.paknpost.org/
— Douglas Hedges, ITS, Atlantic Cape Comm. Coll. Jan 29, 07:36 AM #
This is interesting, but I wonder what the definition of “large” is in these cases. I could investigate, but does anyone know offhand the maximum size that can be transferred. We have files up to 2 gigabites, and occasionally run into problems.
— Henry Jan 29, 10:20 AM #
Accellion’s solution lets you send and receive large email attachments (files and folders up to 20GB) without touching an email server. It also provides automated download receipts, file auditing and tracking capabilities.
— Julie Jan 29, 10:27 AM #
For Pepperdine, the end user experience is the most important thing; and this solution allows for the transfer of large (up to 20gb zipped folders) attachments in a fashion identical to sending attachments under Microsoft Outlook. There’s no training overhead, no complex servers, no cutting and pasting of links, etc. Because attachments are encrypted in transit, this is also our mechanism for sending restricted or confidential information by email – the solution is far more easer to setup and use than digital certificates.
— Timothy Chester Jan 29, 10:34 AM #
Proginet’s CFI solution also handles email attachments of any size without hitting the mail server. They too provide audit trails, tracking, notifications, flexible archive locations, etc. They also handle all aspects of file transfer whether its b2b or internal transfers, not just email attachments. I have worked with the technology and it is good stuff. As I understand it they have done a fair amount of business in the higher ed space.
— Arthur G Jan 30, 05:20 PM #