Critical questions to ask when evaluating CentreStack as an alternative to Dropbox. Make sure you consider these questions - and their answers - when it's decision time.
CentreStack provides complete control of the storage location to maximize data privacy. So, it's commonly used to guarantee data location and compliance, or maintain sovereignty; for example, by enterprises and hosting providers who want to keep data on-premises or in their country. Self-hosting also makes it easy to maintain existing compliance. For example, if you already have HIPAA compliant infrastructure, CentreStack provides a thin access layer to maintain that compliancy.
CentreStack focus on file server cloud enablement and has very well thought out integration with File servers, Active Directory, NTFS permission, mapped drive and file locking.
User training is minimized with CentreStack's use of things like mapped drives and file locking that feel familiar to users. For admins, assisted installation and onboarding are free with small commitments, or can be purchased for a small fee if a monthly subscription is preferred.
This is a common question for small businesses whose employees may elect to use the free version of Dropbox. It may be easy to ignore the hidden cost of the risks associated with less privacy, security and control, but it's hard to ignore the increased support costs. For a tiny team, this may not be noticeable, but as the team size grows, the challenges of managing data in multiple locations, and accessing that data with incompatible tool sets will become increasingly apparent.
CentreStack customers rave about CentreStack's highly responsive support team. Meaningful engagement usually happens in less than an hour and fixes are usually available in a few days.
Another hidden cost that is often overlooked is the cost of moving data into a cloud service. It can take hours, days or even weeks to restructure data and redefine permissions. CentreStack is designed to seamlessly extends a Windows file server to the cloud, while providing drive mapping, file locking, on-demand file synchronization, and maintaining existing NTFS permissions and Active Directory identities. But this approach also makes it migration completely seamless. In other words, file structures, users and permissions can be automatically migrated with minimal effort and zero use disruption.