Whether shared office documents, contact directories or photo albums – Sync and Share Services offer many possibilities for private individuals and companies to process data individually or together. We explain what is behind them and what you should consider when choosing a provider to ensure a high level of data protection.
What is Sync and Share?
Sync and Share means “synchronize and share”. Users can access and edit their own documents on different devices. The software also enables users to share files with others. Thus, users can share their data with other users as desired and thus “share”.
The Sync and Share software is used to synchronize documents on various devices and keep them up-to-date. These include laptops or smartphones, for example. Both private individuals and companies use the systems to store data centrally and access it from different locations. In this way, for example, business processes can be optimized or team collaboration promoted. In corporate use, this is referred to as virtual data rooms.
Further advantages are the simple operation and location-independent access.
These functions have Sync and Share
In principle, the systems can be used for uploading and downloading data. In terms of ease of use, the services offer an alternative to e-mail programs, as very large files can be sent easily and securely. This way the mailbox does not overflow.
But Sync and Share Services are also suitable for more complex applications such as collaboration between several people. This is because they allow documents to be edited by different people in different locations. This allows the respective version to be kept up to date.
An additional option is the manual or automatic synchronization of data. This allows each user to work with the most current version of a document. In addition, you can determine at any time for yourself with whom you want to share the file.
Whether documents, pictures or videos – many services allow you to store the information in an orderly manner. Thanks to a built-in backup system, you can also restore data that has been deleted most often and store it in an archive if necessary.
Offline availability is also an important feature of Sync and Share solutions. Users always automatically receive current data synchronized in the background and can read and edit these files even without an Internet connection. As soon as a network connection is available again, all changes are automatically synchronized.
This allows users to work on current documents securely, quickly and conveniently at any time. The user does not have to worry about sending and receiving data. This allows the user to take care of her projects on the train, on the plane and at other remote locations.
Which representatives of Sync and Share are there?
A typical provider of cloud sync & share services is TeamDrive. Alternatively, services such as Box, Dropbox or Citrix offer the services for data exchange. However, there is a big difference in the security of the associated cloud services.
List of typical Sync&Share services:
By default, the services do not offer encryption. With TeamDrive this is different and represents a special feature: In order to ensure increased security and confidentiality, TeamDrive allows data to be encrypted.
When choosing a provider, you should also make sure that no strangers can access the files. In addition, compliance requirements such as the EU requirements of the GDPR should be observed.
The GDPR is an enormously important aspect: The data protection requirements can only be met if the files are stored in a cloud data center in Germany or Europe or with a European company.
A high level of security is also provided by end-to-end encryption, where the data always remains highly encrypted, even in the cloud. The user keeps his access key outside the cloud. This means that the respective provider or third parties do not have access to the corresponding files.
TeamDrive has been offering Sync and Share Services for over 10 years. However, TeamDrive gives its users an important advantage over Dropbox and Co. If you use TeamDrive, all data is stored in Europe. With Dropbox, on the other hand, they are mainly stored on servers in the USA and are therefore no longer subject to the stricter European regulations on data protection.
How the Sync and Share Services have developed
Over the past 10 years, the names of these cloud solutions have changed frequently, although the core functionality has remained the same.
The key features are to align data, store it securely and share it securely. In the beginning, data protection in the cloud and mobile access to one’s own data played the biggest role. Today, however, it is often the collaboration of several people and the sharing of data.
The market research company Gartner has been observing and analyzing the market for many years. With the “Magic Quadrant“, Gartner provides an annual overview of the market development with the largest, global providers. TeamDrive regularly receives attention there and has already been mentioned several times in the market analyses. However, since TeamDrive focuses on the European market, the service is not marked as a global player in the Magic Quadrant.
Gartner renamed the category “Sync & Share Services” in 2016 to “Enterprise File Sync & Share Services” and later in 2018 to “Content Collaboration Platform”. The services and the players are basically the same, but all competitors are continuously adding more collaboration features.
