Secure, instant and easy mobile access to corporate data

The rapid influx of mobile devices into the workplace offers individual employees convenience and productivity, but it presents significant challenges for IT organisations that are attempting to curtail data leakage and prevent increased operational costs associated with mobile device management. Fuelled by a need to access corporate files and documents - from any location, on any device - end-users are compromising IT security by adopting unsecured consumer-grade cloud services that place enterprise data at risk. To increase remote worker productivity and realise the value of the connected, global enterprise, businesses today require enterprise solutions that combine the best consumer mobile experience with enterprise governance of data.

NetApp has been at the forefront of solving these enterprise challenges by partnering with leaders in this space. Today, NetApp is expanding its portfolio by announcing a new product, NetApp® Connect, for secure, instant, and easy mobile access to data stored on NetApp storage systems. The product, based on technology NetApp acquired from ionGrid, can integrate seamlessly into a NetApp environment without requiring complex VPN setup or separate authentication tools. Additionally, all data remains completely on-premise while delivering consumer-class simplicity and ease of use to the enterprise.

NetApp Connect complements the strong and growing base of NetApp’s partner-delivered mobility solutions such as Citrix ShareFile™ and VMware® Horizon™ Suite, helping NetApp deliver a more complete range of capabilities to enterprise customers. These partner solutions, integrated with the data management capabilities of NetApp storage (or the clustered Data ONTAP® architecture), provide efficient and secure collaboration, data sharing, and mobile device access solutions.

Mobile Access with Secure Data Protection
With NetApp Connect, enterprises no longer need to weigh the reduced IT costs and increased productivity benefits of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies against the risks of corporate data leakage and compliance violations that often occur with unsecured public cloud offerings. By keeping all data securely behind the corporate firewall and never copied to the cloud, NetApp Connect offers mobile access to corporate data while maintaining the tight security and control that enterprise IT requires for keeping its data and business protected.

Instant and Effortless User Experience
Currently available for download as an app from the Apple App Store, and soon to be released for other mobile devices, NetApp Connect gives mobile workers a compelling user experience and effortless access to the corporate information they need to be productive in the field, whether online or offline.

NetApp Connect users can easily stream, view, download, edit and pass on corporate information securely and directly from their iOS devices (including iPhone, iPad and iPad mini) in seconds, whether it’s on file shares, on Microsoft SharePoint or served by Intranet web applications. All documents appear on the screen with pixel-perfect rendering and with the overall look and feel preserved for brand consistency. This enables mobile devices to become a seamless part of the workflow and increase user productivity.

Efficient and Easy to Manage
The NetApp Connect app functions just like any other app on the iPhone or iPad, but it’s a highly manageable solution that creates a secure container on the mobile device, keeping IT in control of the information inside at all times. This “containerised” approach eliminates many common device-management, BYOD and corporate compliance concerns. It also gives IT leaders a new level of control over users and their corporate data to maintain existing rules and policies, and to easily customise user access to grant the right information to the right person, on the right device, at the right time. And because NetApp Connect doesn’t require complex setup or need to copy or convert data, enterprises can deploy it quickly and with complete confidence.