Launching Appirio Cloud Storage

We're pleased to announce the launch of Appirio Cloud Storage. You can read the press release here, and our blog post on the implications of the product here. You can also get started by going to our product page, or our Appexchange listing to install a free trial.

This post will go into additional detail regarding the features and functionality features of the product, giving you a "behind-the-scenes" glimpse of what's behind Appirio Cloud Storage.

The value proposition of Appirio Cloud Storage is simple: we allow an organization to use salesforce.com as the central access point for all sales, marketing and support information

• Works exactly the same for the end user
• Work with files larger than the 5MB limit (up to 1GB)
• Virtually unlimited document storage at a fraction of the cost
• Easy for Admins - No administrative overhead

Appirio Cloud Storage is powered by Amazon S3-- this allows us to take advantage of the security and reliability of the same storage solution that power's Amazon's global infrastructure.

Here's how it works
Appirio Cloud Storage is designed to be easy for an admin to setup , and transparent for end-users-- they shouldn't need to know where their attachments are being stored... just that file size limitations are a thing of the past!

But here's what's going on behind the scenes:

When users add a file

• User selects one or more files to add
• Files are uploaded via a secure web service to Amazon S3
• Programmatic confirmation that the user submitting the files is who they say and the organization is licensed for the service
• File Object is created inside of salesforce.com that points to the newly created url on S3 (contains information on owner, file type, size, name and description – all searachable attributes from within salesforce)
  
  

When users retreive a file:

• A formula field creates a link that contains the file location and secure session ID
• When the user clicks on this link there is programmatic confirmation that the user requesting the files is who they say and the organization is licensed for the service
• File is downloaded and handled like any other (open in new window, save, etc.)