SU students, faculty and staff each have a home directory on the University’s file servers for safe, secure storage of their files. Information Technology and Services (ITS) has made it possible to access those files from anywhere, at any time, on any device.
“We installed DatAnywhere on the University’s file servers and turned our network shares into a secure, enterprise-class private cloud,” says Andrew Joncas, manager of ITS’s Core Systems Services group. “All student home directories were upgraded to 25GB capacity, too, so this will be very useful.”
The free DatAnywhere app for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android provides secure access to your on-campus storage drive, also known as your “home directory” (typically your H: drive, or “Documents” or “My Documents” folder). All you need is your SU email address and SU NetID password. You also can access your home directory from a browser.
Brenton Michonet, a junior majoring in political science and communication and rhetorical studies, is an early adopter. “DatAnywhere is pretty impressive. Its simple structure makes the sharing and accessing of files (which you can also create) easy and convenient. If you need anything that’s in your home directory, no worries, it will be there. If you need to get to anything, you can always upload it to your home directory,” he says. “If you want to share with external users, just click in the box next to your document and hit the send icon. You can edit a document, which updates in no time when finished. An overall great resource!”
Home directories are already activated for all SU students, who are automatically enrolled and can each download the app to their devices and start using the service. Get started at Answers.syr.edu.
Faculty and staff can use DatAnywhere too, but need to contact their IT support team to have it activated.
John Torrens, professor of practice in the Whitman School of Management, has been giving the service a workout. “I really like it. Prior to using it, I was limited to connecting with SURA to my remote desktop, which was great, but often slow, depending on my connection speed. Also, there was no option to access files from my phone. I travel a lot to teach in our various IVMF programs, so having a good mobile solution is important to me,” he says. “The combination of Outlook Web Access and DatAnywhere makes it so I have everything I need without the speed issues associated with establishing a VPN connection to my remote desktop. This eliminates the need to keep things locally on my laptop and then remember to transfer them to my PC when I get back to the office. And having it available on my phone enables me to send file attachments and organize incoming attachments while on the go. When I get back to my desk, I don’t need to do a lot of file clean up and management. “
Complete information about DatAnywhere, including download links, is available at Answers.syr.edu.
