Here at MERAK systems we did not have a good way to send clients sensitive information safely. This was a problem and was holding MERAK back; there were ways of sending the files however it was long and tedious.

We needed a SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) site to transfer sensitive information in large files to a client safely and protected. I had heard about Pydio from a mentor, who had said it would work well for MERAK and is open source. Looking into this I learned Pydio (formerly ajaXplorer) is an open source alternative to Dropbox or programs alike.

Pydio stands for “Put Your Data In Orbit”. It is a file sharing platform for enterprise, with simple web and mobile apps, hosted securely on a server or cloud. Deciding to go with this file sharing platform, I setup an Ubuntu server to host Pydio. I was relatively new to this type of setup but the instructions were fairly easy to follow and was up and running in a reasonable time.

The layout of Pydio was slick, simple and easy to use. With Pydio we were able to setup accounts for employees. This allowed them to send client’s password protected files.

In simple terms Pydio works like this, a created user sends a minisite to a client’s email. This email comes with a URL (link to the minisite), username, and password (alternatively a user can send the email without login information and contact the client by other means). The client then clicks on the URL; this brings them to our hosted Pydio site. However these sites are restricted and only allow the clients to see files shared to them. Clients can also drag files into the shared minisite to make adjustments, counter offers, share additional files…etc.

Pydio comes with a number of nice features. Some of these features include, Syncing Pydio with our AD accounts. A “watch” feature, which based on a user voluntary opt-in, alerts can send email when the content of a file or folder is either modified or consulted. Numerous plugins to make Pydio look and do what you want it to. Overall Pydio has made things simpler and safer which is exactly what MERAK needed and wanted.