In line with our vision of delivering end-to-end file security, we are today announcing the addition of Vaultize Lotus Notes Plug-in to our enterprise file sync & share (EFSS) platform. This enables large size file sharing capability through Lotus Notes with complete security, IT control and visibility to meet compliance and data governance requirements.
The Vaultize Plug-in for IBM Lotus Notes replaces email attachments with secure links – enabling better IT control while reducing email storage (both in the mailbox and on email server) and network bandwidth.
Further, Vaultize’s embedded enterprise digital rights management (eDRM or information rights management aka IRM) further enhances file security by converting the file attachments into their DRM-encrypted versions so that access control on shared files is always maintained – even after the recipients have downloaded the files. Everything is driven through centralized IT policies with embedded access controls like IP/Geo fencing, digital rights management - providing tracking, audit trails and eDiscovery capabilities required to meet compliances.
Vaultize Notes plug-in reduces the size of both primary and secondary mailboxes (mailbox size in Domino server and desktop clients) significantly, which enhances the user experience due to faster load times. Smart de-duplication reduces network and storage usage by up to 90 percent. All shared files are stored only once on the secure Vaultize server/cloud and a link is automatically inserted in the email. Multiple versions of the same file are stored incrementally in a de-duplicated form, resulting in significant savings in storage and bandwidth.
Background
For several decades, email attachments have been the most popular and easy way of sharing files. Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino have been the most popular messaging and collaboration solutions. With the increased dependence on email, end users have been facing a lot of issues trying to deal with attachments. Both Exchange and Domino by default limit the size of the attachments, which makes sharing of large files very difficult. To get around this issue, corporate users are falling prey to consumer file sharing solutions like Dropbox creating shadow-IT and increasing security, data loss and compliance risks.
Attachments contribute the most to sizes of mailboxes, which slows down Outlook and Lotus Notes clients, increases the usage of costly primary storage on Exchange and Domino servers and makes it difficult for users to work efficiently.
Additionally, if confidential or sensitive files are shared outside the organization by mistake, it is nearly impossible for the user or the administrator to revoke or block such attachments. Also, it is not possible to set an expiry for an attachment in terms of number of accesses or downloads based on date and time. It is also not possible to control the access rights on attachments such that certain recipients are restricted to only certain types of accesses, like view-only access through web-based online viewer and only DRM downloads or downloads with embedded digital watermarks.
What’s in it for IT?
With data volumes growing exponentially year after year, IT administrators have been facing a lot of issues in controlling attachments and data shared through attachments. IT administrators have limited or no control on the attachments using transport rules. It is very important for administrators to be able to define policies especially for the data being shared outside the organization, to ensure internal and external regulatory compliance with the ability to preserve records to ensure regulatory audit and evidentiary scrutiny.
IT administrators have no control on how attachments can be accessed or used. Once data leaves the organization, IT (and document owners) cannot track who is accessing the data from where and how. This kind of tracking is very useful for regulatory purpose and when required to analyze data loss issues.
Attachments are the major contributors to the mailbox sizes. IT administrators have to make provision for huge amount of primary storage and given the poor de-duplication at the email server (Exchange and Domino), the associated cost increases tremendously resulting in increased expenses.
Vaultize plug-in for Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes make these email clients more efficient while providing IT with better control over file sharing. The plug-in replaces email attachments with secure links - freeing up email storage (both in mailbox and email server) and network bandwidth. All shared files are securely stored (and only once) on Vaultize server/cloud and a link is automatically inserted in the email. Corporate IT can also set policies for auto-conversion of attachments to secure links and allow large size email attachments – with powerful access control and audit capabilities like digital rights management and IP/Geo fencing.
Vaultize Lotus Notes Plug-in features:
Attachment Conversion to Link: Convert attachments into secure links. Even large attachments can be added to your email quickly because of Vaultize global de-duplication and WAN optimization technology.
Policy Based Control: Policy based auto-conversion of email attachments to links – improving security, network usage and storage utilization. Attachment replacement policies can be based on the size of attachments, sender and recipients of the email. Expiry can be set based on time period or number of accesses.
Optimize Storage Capacity of Mail Server and NSF: Save server and mailbox storage by up to 90% and reduce network utilization using smart de-duplication technology of Vaultize.
Multiple Viewing Options: Files are accessible to recipients through web based online document viewer.
Access Management: Set access rights on the links – restrict access to sender and receiver only, restrict access or downloads or make files view-only through online document viewer.
Sharing & Replacement: IT control over the use of plug-in using policies for attachment replacement and sharing.
Enterprise Digital Rights Management (DRM): Access control with automated DRM policies applied on email attachments – restrict the edit, print, copy/paste, forward by recipients. Ability to track each and every activity on files and the option to revoke access any time.
Integration with Content-aware Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Vaultize integrates with all popular content-aware DLP solutions through ICAP protocol. This allows enterprise IT to set automated policies to allow, block or DRM-protect email attachments based on the content classification accordance with regulations and compliance.
Geo & IP Fencing: Access Control with Geo and IP fencing and track all accesses to the files with Geo and IP tracking.
No Limit on the file size: Vaultize does not limit the size of attachments and hence users can share files of any size.
Flexible Deployment Options
Vaultize provides flexible deployment options suitable to every industry and vertical.
Cloud-in-a-Box Appliance
Vaultize Cloud-in-a-Box Appliance is industry’s first purpose-built appliance for file sharing, digital rights management and secure access. It is built on enterprise-grade rack-mountable servers with an optimized combination of processor, memory and storage for performance. The appliance reduces deployment time and avoids the complexity of managing disparate hardware and software components.
Private Cloud/On-Premise
In Private Cloud deployment or On-premise deployment Vaultize server software is deployed on the hardware provided by the customer, with the configuration recommended by Vaultize. For deployments with less than 3000 users, it is can be deployed with a single server (dedicated or VM). For a higher configuration, a highly scalable private cloud can be implemented using multiple servers and storage options (including storage from cloud providers).
Public Cloud
Vaultize public cloud is hosted in the world-class data centers of Amazon Web Services (AWS) that are compliant with SAS 70 Type II, PCI DSS and ISO 27001 standards. Vaultize Public Cloud is designed to be secure, scalable and reliable. Vaultize provides 99.5% up-time guarantee with server deployment across data centers in different disasters zones in the USA. It also provides 3-way redundancy for data by storing the data at minimum 3 locations across different disaster zones.
Lotus Notes plug-in will be in Beta for a month. If you are interested in participating in our Beta program, email us (sales at Vaultize dot com).
Also explore popular use cases of Vaultize - Enterprise-Dropbox (Dropbox Alternative), FTP Replacement, Virtual Data Room (VDR), VPN-free access to file-servers/NAS) and Endpoint Data Protection by submitting a request for a FREE Trial.
