Cloud Computing 101: Securely manage business information, it’s simple!

Securely manage business information with The Cloud. It’s simple!

How Stellar Library is harnessing the power of cloud computing to change the face of enterprise information management, forever

One of the technologies that provides the power and security behind Stellar’s functionality is the Cloud.

In fact, it’s the Cloud that makes it possible to manage and distribute your documents and information without being exposed to all the complexity around data storage and the associated administrative overhead.

Hence the “simple to install, easy to use” byline.

Regardless of how you’re using Stellar – for Board Books, as a Digital Library, as a Sales Tool or for Data Room management – a key attribute of the product is “persistence” when it comes to your information.

The dictionary defines persistence as “the continued or prolonged existence of something“. In this context we’re talking about your documents, and the ability to access them anywhere anytime, on any device.

Once the administrator or librarian makes a document available, with pre-defined assigned access and distribution rights, no further work is required to make it available thanks to the Cloud.

 

What is The Cloud?

The Cloud frees users from the need to have to run applications or programs from software downloaded on a physical computer or server within their organisation. Using the connectivity provided by the internet, users can access not only the data they need, but also the applications required to access that data.

While the Cloud is just a concept, behind that idea lies the huge computer server farms which store and manage the information run by global giants such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

Besides being a very efficient and cost-effective way to work, this also means it is possible to quickly access more resources to scale activities via the cloud. You can also reduce resources used if needed, hence the references to the the cloud’s elasticity.

 

Stellar – securely fastening your enterprise’s information seat-belt

Stellar - securely fastening your enterprise's information seat-belt

Of course the often referred to downside of widespread availability and easy access to information is security, something that Stellar takes very seriously.

And that brings us to the “gory detail” around keeping your information safe.

  • Stellar Library provides high levels of security. All files are encrypted on devices and during transmission. There is a full audit trail of file access and use. It’s also possible to remotely remove documents if a device is lost or stolen.
  • Stellar’s data is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms. Amazon has never had a significant data security breach.
  • Stellar’s primary data location is in Sydney, which provides proximity and helps assist speed of operation. We also utilise other AWS regions for backup and development. The services we use include EC2 for web frontend and document conversion and S3 for library file storage along with other services to store data and speed up and manage distribution.
  • Stellar use AWS IAM to manage security and give individual staff members access to the Amazon environment. Administrative access to the database and front-end servers is restricted to the IP addresses of our offices and those of our contractors. Our library manager site is secured with an Extended Validation SSL certificate and our application is designed to only allow access to the files a given user has access to.
  • Stellar’s access control is performed by the web front-end, releasing time limited signed URLs to retrieve the document from S3/CloudFront only when the user requesting the document has sufficient access rights to retrieve that document.

If you or any or your technical people have any further questions around security please contact support@stellarlibrary.com and, if necessary, we can put you in touch directly with our developers to discuss details.

 

Information management’s forecast? It’s cloudy

While cloud computing provides the key platform for many business applications as well as Stellar, it’s not something that is standing still.

Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain loom on the horizon, among other developments, to help process the increasing amounts of data being generated everywhere and to help make the Cloud more “data-aware“.

As the complexity of that data and networks grows, AI will be necessary to control them.

For Stellar’s part, we’re focused on embracing these technologies and working closely on accessibility, ease of use and, as always, security.

That, and our next challenge to make Stellar’s secure management and electronic distribution of documents ubiquitous across our customers’ data environment.

We’ll keep you posted!

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