IBM Cloud Object Storage vs. Progress ShareFile

IBM Cloud Object Storage is well suited for businesses that require scalable and cost-effective data storage solutions. It excels in scenarios involving massive unstructured data, like multimedia content, backups, and archives. However, it may be less appropriate for organizations with minimal storage needs or those requiring high-performance, low-latency access to data, as it's optimized for durability and data integrity rather than real-time data retrieval.

Incentivized

Progress ShareFile has been a great tool for sharing files. When you send to outside people they get an easy link to click on to download the needed files. On the sender side you get options to have the person do things logon to get the file, just enter a name and email address, or just click on the link and download. There are hooks to use other tools to scan for personal information like SSN or credit card numbers. Many of our users use email to send and store emails. They have found that clicking on a link to get a file adds a bit of complexity but many have learned how to adjust to the change.

Incentivized

• Cloud storage allows you to save data and files in an off-site location that you access either through the public internet or a dedicated private network connection.
• Cloud storage delivers a cost-effective, scalable alternative to storing files on on-premise hard drives or storage networks.
• Cloud storage services provide elasticity, which means you can scale capacity as your data volumes increase or dial down capacity if necessary.
• Business continuity of Storing data offsite supports business continuity in the event that a natural disaster or terrorist attack cuts access to your premises.

Incentivized

• I think that one of ShareFile's greatest strengths is its ease of use. With the outlook plug-in sharing large documents is so quick and easy.
• I also like the security and control that is provided for who can access the documents and tracking the changes within them. I think it does well at protecting information that leaves the company.
• I also think the website is well organized and easy to use. It was very easy for us to implement and train our employees on the proper use of the website and software.

Incentivized

• Unexpected errors are known to occur when downloading/uploading files.
• Not easy to get started. In order to take full advantage of the platform and its features, additional training and reading documentation is needed.
• The UI of the platform can get a bit confusing and it's easy to get lost.

Incentivized

• Users grow quickly (each client gets a separate account). Automated pruning would be nice.
• I'm not aware of integration with Office365 online (only the outlook app). This could make it harder for some users.
• It would be nice to have something that auto-scans emails and attachments for PII and would require Sharefile for those emails.

Incentivized

because it is a robust, safe and flexible product

Incentivized

It's a highly effective and secure storage system, has robust workarounds for serving the various equipment limits of our users, meets high security requirements of HIPAA standards, significantly reduces our needs for producing paper trails.

Incentivized

For my use cases, it has been a very smooth experience. Even my new colleagues have been able to get on top of things very quickly. This shows how easy it is to work with

Incentivized

Some of the clunkiness in the user interface and the processing of documents could be made more seamless. However, once you get over that learning curve, it's straightforward enough. The API for integrating external systems is well documented, and the support crew is great at getting you over the rough spots. There's nothing bad about their system, just a few things I thought could be more elegant.

We rarely face downtime or access issues with IBM Cloud Object Storage. It’s mostly available when we need it, even during peak hours or heavy data loads.

Incentivized

The software has never been down when I needed to use it.

Incentivized

I would give it a 9 because it works smooth with our AI and analytics tools, no major slowdown. Pages and dashboards load fine most of the time, and reports finish in decent time even when data is heavy.

Incentivized

Easy to use, easy to integrate with Outlook. I only gave it a 9 because I have found that sometimes it does not play nicely with Outlook and can slow it down. But, when that happens (not frequent), I restart Outlook and all is well again

Incentivized

I have been working in IT sector for more than 15 years. I have worked with various vendors. IBM's sales team, support team have been really helpful. After we start to use their product, their UX design team also contacted us to get feedback from us. They are really interested about our experience.

Incentivized

Typically the support is very knowledgeable and interested in following an issue until it is fully resolved. I have not had any issues working with their staff as they are all polite and easy to communicate with. If the first or second level tech does not fix the concern then it is escalated until we get to someone who can close the case.

Incentivized

I just researching and applying the tools on their platforms to ensure a good learning path, based on my needs. Reading the documentation related with resources, tools. Is too big, but I am trying to know more about it every day. It is a good way to know more about their resources. A new way to attract new customers. At the end of the day, we are all involved in improvement and automation of our tasks and resources for customers and end-users.

Incentivized

IBM's professional service for migrating data and implementing new cloud environment was perfect. They started to help us before we begin to bring together all data such as how can it could be best to transfer all data without problems. During the migration they watched all the process closely to prevent any failure. Lastly, after the migration, they gave us trainings on implementation.

Incentivized

Good documentation for the API. With a little help from RS tech staff, any competent programmer should be able to integrate RightSignature with an existing system in a week or three. That help is easy to get as well

As Google Cloud Storage is our main product for this kind of thing, it remains the standard but in terms of overall performance, flexibility, stability, durability, and scalability, IBM Cloud Object Storage has put it through its paces. I think having a product put Google through its paces is always a good thing, both for businesses and for the industry overall.

ShareFile offers more professional level services, and doesn't constantly "run out" of space, forcing you to upgrade to continue. When doing a cost comparison, the competitors may seem cheaper at first, but by the time you add on the features to make it comparable, the pricing is as much, if not more, than what we're paying for ShareFile. The access control level is better with ShareFile, so we chose to stay with them.

Scaling up the number of users can lead to significant increases in licensing costs, which, while not a technical limitation, can be a practical constraint for some organizations

Incentivized

I am a one person office. I have no idea how this software would scale to a larger office.

Incentivized

• In our company, we moved from on-premise to IBM cloud, our ElasticSearch Solution storage in block storage to an ICD elastic search solution with Object storage, and we reduced our cost by more than 45%.
• Object Storage is a managed service, so you can have savings in your storage-managed team.
• We have improved our data availability because the Regional solution of COS is distributed in three different Availability Zones.

Incentivized

• All of our clients and consulting engineers find ShareFile easy to use, thus complementing our business.
• Our staff also find ShareFile intuitive, accessible, and easy to use, making it an ideal, everyday indispensable desktop tool for everyone in our company.
• ShareFile can be linked to our firm's primary website as a placed for private use. We haven't found need for this yet, but might in the future.

Incentivized