Last Updated: 2016.11.04
How many times have you needed to provide data to someone, either inside or outside your organization, and ran into this common road block?
How do you share information with someone who is outside of your firewall and network without compromising your corporate network security?
VPN Access
Option 1 might be to provide VPN access. For sales teams and road warriors, this might be a logical way to provide them access.
When properly set-up and administered, VPNs are secure and provide access to your internal systems without altering your security systems.
The drawback to this is that it isn't necessarily user-friendly. A remote user would have to boot-up a mobile device, initiate the VPN, open the data application and then navigate to get the information that they need.
The other drawback to a VPN is that it doesn't make sense for users who need very limited access to data. You can provide them with access to the VPN, but then you must control their access to whatever data they specifically need.
It hardly seems reasonable to maintain VPN user accounts for someone who accesses data once every few months.
When you start to involve suppliers, vendors, and customers, giving them a VPN account makes even less sense. A self-service portal should be something quick and fast they can refer to find the specific information you wish to share with them.
Ain't nobody got time for VPNs.
Open Firewall Ports
Option 2 is to open a port in your firewall and provide a nice front-end to access your data. This is by far the easiest way to provide data in a user-friendly way.
You could develop HTML-based portals that provide the exact data that you wish to provide to employees, customers, vendors, and anyone else. You can style them in any way, and slice and dice the data in ways that are specifically needed rather than the way the software vendor dictates.
However, the dangerous side is the degradation in security. Opening a port in your firewall that is open to the internet is a welcome mat to intrude your network.
It's not a matter of if someone could find their way in, it's a matter of how long until they do.
So...Now What?
So how do we take the best of the VPN, the secure access to your network, and marry it to the ease of the portal's ability of a simple interface to provide data to remote users?
You guessed it. Bezlio.
Hello. Let Us Introduce You to Bezlio!
We are excited...nay...thrilled to be able to announce that we are working on a platform that will do just that!
Bezlio is a revolutionary platform that allows you to utilize the cloud to access and interact with your data using apps, analytics, and dashboards, all without requiring you to expose your private enterprise data to the Internet.
Using Bezlio's data connectors, you can build anything from simple dashboards and database analytics to complex product configurators and mobile applications that integrate with your internal applications and databases.
Rapidly mobilize your data and business functions without the complexities of securing the data. All of your enterprise data can now be securely accessed in the cloud by employees, partners, suppliers, or customers without compromising your current network security.
For more details on how Bezlio works, how is security handled, what can it currently integrate with, and what are some possible use cases, just follow these links.
As of November 1, 2016, we have started working with several beta customers to provide their users with remote data using Bezlio! Our plan is to invite the public to join us in January 2017.
The best way to stay on top of Bezlio developments and updates (especially as we narrow down the public release) is to join our mailing list, here.
We are beyond excited. We are obsessive about our customers, and we cannot wait to show you how Bezlio can work for you!