What is our primary use case?
It's a user-friendly, secure, data-sharing collaboration tool.
In COVID, there was a boom. There were a lot of users who wanted to send in to seek the data. There's a file phase, which you can send across to ShareFile, which is an entirely secure communication with multifactor authentication. It's up to 100GB.
You can share files sized up to 100GB. That's the limit defined by Citrix for end users. It doesn't take much time. Obviously, they won't see around 100GB. However, 2GB or 3GB of data, or even 5GB of data would take hardly three or four minutes to get uploaded and sent to the end users.
How has it helped my organization?
It has secure our data share between end user
What is most valuable?
It's user-friendly for end users. We don't train them much.
You have it for browsers, mobile applications, and as an Outlook plugin where normally users send and receive the data through email, et cetera. You have all kinds of features.
Simultaneously it is also very secure. You can have the multifactor authentication, and you can get the logs on the security level to know who's sending what data. It’s a good feature for tracking and security purposes.
What needs improvement?
They have already started to do this - which we had in our requests - and that is to have everything in one. Citrix has different platforms and different products. Those are already built up in the workspace. Therefore, you have the Citrix ShareFile, virtual labs, desktops, and mobile. Everything they have should be integrated into one item. It’s improving. They have it now where the end user can use all the works as one solution instead of bits and pieces here and there.
For how long have I used the solution?
I’ve been using the solution for almost five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has been very stable. It’s reliable. The performance is good. There are no bugs or glitches.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product can scale well.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is quite helpful and responsive. They have a front line that tries to understand the solution. If they're not able to do it, they escalate it. If escalation has an issue, then they work with the product team, and with the engineering team.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. It's not complicated. I’ve done the deployment when I was in Citrix and the deployment for the current customer and therefore have experience doing this a few times.
How long the deployment takes is up to the customer in terms of what type of storage zone controller you're going to operate. If you're going to operate on-premise, then you need to have the network team and the server, physical server, the load balances, and storage zone controller storage deployed. It shouldn't take, if the infrastructure is ready, more than a week. IN that time, you can set up the entire full-fledged configuration and have enrollment running if you have all the hardware and the communications ready. That's on the on-premise side.
If it's on a specific cloud, even when you purchase the procurement, it won't take even a day. In 24 hours, you will be up and running easily on the ShareFile cloud if you are working with the Citrix cloud. If you're doing a private cloud, then the communication to open the ports between the ShareFile can complain to the private cloud. That might be at least a week, depending on the internal teams. If they work very fast and smoothly, it's a matter of a day.
You only need one person to maintain the solution. It’s pretty low-maintenance.
What was our ROI?
If there is the potential for ROI it is totally based on the usage of the users and how the users are going to use the solution in order to gain a benefit from the product. If they're using this ShareFile for one year, they should be able to recover their costs. Likely within three months, they will recover whatever they have invested in it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Currently, the licensing type is a subscription. It's paid every year. If you're going with endpoint management, Citrix Endpoint Management, or XenMobile, then they might give the ShareFile solution licenses t a lower cost.
I don't handle the sales and the pricing part, so I’m not 100% sure on how everything works. It's managed by a different unit here.
There're not many additional costs for the license fee. The price will be very compatible with or less than any other products you have on the market.
What other advice do I have?
I’m a partner, and I'm a certified engineer for ShareFile.
You have ShareFile in two forms. ShareFile actually has three components. One is the user, another is the control plane, and another is the storage zone controller. The control plane is managed by Citrix itself, which is on the Citrix cloud. The one in which you have the storage zone controller is either on-premise or on the cloud. It can be a public cloud or a private cloud. We have the current enrollment that’s on-premise storage zone control, which is managed by us. With my previous experience, I've worked on Azure as a public cloud for Citrix. I've worked on all three kinds of sectors of the storage zone controller.
It's a go-to solution. If you have to share official organizational data across the globe, it's perfect for a new user. They are in safe hands. They don't need to worry about security concerns. Plus, the data sharing will be faster for them.
I’d rate the solution ten out of ten.
*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner