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Cloud storage platform Box.net is ramping up security today, announcing a new set of tools and access controls for the enterprise. In addition, Box is also announcing a product integration with Intel to deliver additional protections for users and increased admin capabilities for IT managers.
In general, Box has made controls more granular. Now when users share any links on the storage platform, users can limit who can view a file or folder to only users within a company domain or to collaborators within a specific folder. Users can structure this so that these security controls only extend to individual files or to entire folders of content.
While Box has always offered a features that allowed admins to track each Box login from a new browser, you can now track logins from mobile devices, desktops via Box Sync as well as via custom apps using Box APIs. IT admins can now limit the number of devices an employee can access from the same user ID.
Box is also announcing a new relationship with Intel that includes integrations to simplify how IT administrators manage user permissions and group access through Single Sign-On (SSO) and authentication. For example, Box is working with Intel to streamline secure access to Box using credentials managed by Intel’s Expressway Cloud Access 360. Administrators can use ECA 360 to automatically provision Box accounts, leverage existing identity repositories and enable federated SSO to Box.
And Box customers using ECA 360 who want a more intense user identity verification can take advantage of 2-factor authentication available with ECA 360 and configure the system to challenge users to enter a one-time password, which is delivered separately via a smart phone or cell.
Additionally, Box Business Account customers now have access to an additional 500GB of storage capacity, for a total of 1TB of cloud storage at no additional cost. Box Enterprise Account customers receive an unlimited amount of data storage.
Rampung up security for the cloud storage platform should only help Box add additional Fortune 500 and enterprise customers. Already, provides storage solutions for 77% of the Fortune 500 with 100,000 businesses using Box’s service (250,000 new users are joining each month).
To help keep costs in line, the fiber links are for consumer accounts only, at least so far. Jasper has been an ardent foe of broadband caps, where ISPs place a limit on the amount of data a customer can use each month. However, when it comes to delivering broadband to businesses, he recognizes that a superfast gigabit connection to a business will have a very different usage pattern than one delivered to a consumer. Yet currently Sonic.net only charges businesses a bit more than residential services at $45 and $90 respectively). Under a gigabit network, that lack of price differential and the possibility for a business to use all of their connection (or even half) becomes unsustainable.
“We haven’t built our fiber past any businesses yet, and we did it intentionally,” Jasper said. “With our stance on no capping, I have a little bit of concern delivering 1 gig to a business at $89.95 and them using half of it, because that could really happen.”
Sonic.net has a decade and a half modeling usage for consumers at lower prices than rivals offer, but with businesses and their demand for broadband, Jasper says there are a lot of unknowns. For example, the lack of applications for gigabit networks probably helps Jasper here, as does the fact that most consumers typically use downlink services to consume content. And currently there’s a limit to how much they can consume, even with three or four TVs downloading or streaming HD content.
“Consumption is still constrained by the number of TVs and hard drives and even though everyone eventually has more stuff, practically speaking it really does end up normalizing down to a reasonable level,” Jasper says. He points out that the inbound bandwidth costs and middle mile bandwidth costs are getting less and less expensive, which means that customers downloading content isn’t a giant cost suck. But a business might hook a data center or several servers up on a gigabit connection and use that to send a lot of traffic out. And that could get expensive.
So for those watching U.S. broadband policy, between Google’s plans to deploy fiber to the home in both Kansas Cities, a few municipal networks, Verizon’s FiOS network and Sonic.net’s plans, we’re getting more people to a gigabit. It can be done, so let’s see what we can learn as these companies push ahead. And when others say it can’t be done, perhaps we’ll have the information that proves them wrong.
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