After ARKANCE connected the firm to Egnyte, it found the remote data access and file sharing functionality needed to thrive.
How A&E Design Wins With Egnyte
- Rapid remote file access from virtually any device
- Easy internal and external file sharing
- Quick and reliable recovery of lost files
A&E Design is an architecture and design firm with a portfolio of exciting projects, including a renovation of the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone National Park.
While relatively modest in size, the company manages enormous volumes of data. To keep that data accessible to stakeholders across the state of Montana and beyond, it was paramount to minimize silos and data sprawl.
To address this need, ARKANCE—A&E’s partner for technology solutions such as Autodesk and Bluebeam—pointed the company toward Egnyte. A&E’s subsequent adoption of Egnyte has eliminated the barriers standing in the way of their hybrid work model and enabled future growth.
Challenge: A&E Struggles to Access Files on Its Own Terms
With workers spread across multiple offices, enabling everyone to access and share data using A&E’s on-premises data storage platform was a major headache. The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated the problem, as many staff members began working from home, further straining the firm’s existing infrastructure.
To connect these sites and remote workers, the firm relied heavily on VPNs. This proved unsustainable, especially for Mac users. Wesley Miller, IT Director at A&E Design, explained: “Our Branding and Marketing teams are all on Apple devices, and the VPN just wasn’t working. People kept getting frustrated trying to access their files. The issue got a lot worse during COVID when everyone went remote.”
Sharing files under such circumstances required convoluted workarounds. With no reliable way to gain timely access over a VPN, users had to download files to their local machines to edit. Thumb drives and external hard drives were used to share exceptionally large files with consulting firms.
Solution: ARKANCE Brings in Egnyte’s Cloud-Hosted Platform
A&E’s technology partner ARKANCE was aware of the issues the company was facing. So when Miller reached out to his contact there about renewing A&E’s subscription to another data platform, ARKANCE recommended looking at Egnyte. “The thinking was that Egnyte had proven really successful in the AEC space, could easily meet our heavy cloud data storage needs, and was great for sharing and accessing files on any device,” Miller explains. “That made it easy to sell to my leadership team.”
Egnyte serves as a cloud-hosted file management system that eliminates file access barriers for users in any location. In testing Egnyte, users found that they were able to open Adobe Creative Cloud files and other content directly in Egnyte and share them with internal and external stakeholders via secure links with granular access permissions. Brian Smith, Cloud Solutions Specialist at ARKANCE, elaborates on why this was so significant for A&E: “The brain of many data platforms focuses on their filers. Egnyte’s brain is in the cloud. A&E's current solution didn’t have a lot of great options for remote file access, and A&E started to feel the sting from that when they went remote during the pandemic. Egnyte is perfect for that, and for the hybrid in-office and work-from-home model A&E has now.” Critically, all file sharing now happens through Egnyte, completely eliminating the need to copy files between systems like Windows and multiple data silos—all of which were previously in use—and then having to share those files as email attachments, creating further security risks and contributing to data sprawl.
With so many large files, Miller initially had concerns about data storage. Egnyte quickly put those concerns to bed. “We have some massive folders with huge reality capture files,” Miller says. “Egnyte just vacuums those up with no problems, and it doesn’t struggle when we transfer large data volumes.” And if any files are accidentally lost or overwritten by a user, Egnyte’s Secure and Govern tools, audit logs, and easy file search functionality quickly neutralizes the issue.
"We have some massive folders with huge reality capture files,” Miller says. “Egnyte just vacuums those up with no problems, and it doesn’t struggle when we transfer large data volumes.” - Wesley Miller, IT Director, A&E Design
Benefits: Seamless Collaboration from Anywhere, on Any Device
A&E set out to create a functional and reliable hybrid work model in which users could work on mission-critical files using the device of their choice. Egnyte has enabled them to achieve that goal with remarkable ease. Joe Cates, Business Line Director for Egnyte at ARKANCE, adds, “Based on the challenges A&E Design was facing, I knew that Egnyte had the right features and benefits to fit their needs. In my time working with the AEC Industry, rarely has there been a solution in the market that solves for office workers and remote workers to provide the same experience whether you are at home, in the field, or working from the office. Egnyte does that and more."
Asked to name his favorite Egnyte feature, Wesley says: “There are a ton that I love, but if I have to name one, I’ve got to go with all-device file sharing. If someone reaches out because they’re having trouble finding a file, I can just send them a secure link instead of sending a downloaded file as an email attachment or showing them how to find the file in a letter drive they might not know how to navigate. It’s amazing how easy Egnyte’s mobile app is. I remember I was once sitting in the parking lot of a pharmacy when a colleague reached out looking for a file from a decade-old project, and I was able to pull out my phone and send it immediately on the Egnyte app, right from my car.”
A&E’s relationship with the Egnyte team also ranks far ahead of their experience with previous data management providers. Wesley says, when working with Egnyte’s Professional Services team during their implementation: “PS knew exactly what we’d need in terms of hardware and bandwidth, and they have a great data migration tool. Once I provided what was needed, they had us up and running exactly when they said they would—no delays. All the while, communication and responsiveness were top-notch. That has been true not just of PS, but of the entire Egnyte support team. And ARKANCE was such an essential partner in finding this solution for us and connecting us with it. I’m really grateful to them for that.”
All in all, Egnyte has changed what Wesley thought was possible with cloud-based content storage and collaboration. “I used to tell people there was no panacea for cloud-based storage in our industry. There would always be some issue with real-time file access or other details. Egnyte has shown me I was wrong. It’s the only cloud solution I’ve seen that is truly enterprise data management, that solves for people working remotely, and that is completely secure and easy to use.”
ARKANCE Editors
ARKANCE editors share insights, trends, and innovations shaping the built world, helping industry professionals stay ahead in a rapidly changing industry.