SmallBizResource Blog -- Networking & Communications

Networking Comes Easy With The Right Tool

Posted by Judy Mottl Tuesday, Oct 2, 2007, 10:30 AM ET

Denis Oakley runs Oakley Steel, which sources high quality European steel for engineering and construction companies building oil rigs, pressure vessels and a variety of other applications where steel quality is paramount. His company is a three-person team looking to double staff in the next three months. Oakley himself runs all things IT.

In searching for a reliable way to network the company’s two laptops in an inexpensive fashion, Oakley stumbled upon BeInSync Business, which had been touted online as one of the 100 “Best Web” applications.

BeInSync Business offers easy and secure backup, synchronization, sharing and access of user data with central administration via a Web console. Documents can be shared and kept in sync at all times with mobile workforce or small teams. It enables telecommuters and mobile users to access and sync data across different computers and locations from any Web browser. Users are eligible for both phone support, as well as email support.

Pricing starts at $5 per user per month.

Oakley had already pulled in some Internet enabled services such as Salesforce. What he wanted now was a secure networking system with reliable backup capability.

At the time he was using an I-drive and basically copying files onto a USB or just emailing them. As he recalls “it didn’t work very well.”

After checking out BeInSync’s product he decided to try it.

“We’ve set it up so that we have a primary computer to which all the files are copied to and from. That then acts as the backup keystone. As we grow larger the all to all model will slowly become impracticable but I think that the structure of the organization will have changed by then as well.”

The best part, says Oakley, is that the product does its job “without us really having to worry about anything.” One feature he’d love to see is a bandwidth throttle—a function that the vendor says will soon be released.

Another functionality he’d love to see is the ability to print to any printer attached to one of his BeInSync laptops or PCs, and more product improvements so that he can eventually use the service to replace a network.

Oakley says other SMBs seeking a similar solution should take their time in assessing what needs to be done.

“Think about what you want to do very carefully. We have a particular business model which is designed to be totally Internet dependent. When we don’t have it things become more difficult. However it does give us huge resilience if we lose any of our hardware,” he says.

Networking & Communications