As a small business owner working in financial services it has always bugged me how expensive good virtual data room solutions were, with pretty much anything that is any good only being offered as SAS (software as a service) with what I always thought was overly high pricing (two if the biggies/oldies, Intralinks and FilesAnywhere, don’t even include pricing on their websites, which to me is a red flag). So we have muddled along using DropBox and ftp through a hosting service like Hostgator. Former creates copies of everything on everyone’s computers, and the less tech savvy often have problems with the latter. Neither project a particularly professional image.

I don’t know why I didn’t find it sooner, but I recently stumbled on an application called Rumpus, a  “complete internet file transfer solution for the Macintosh.” Here is why I like this application:

• Runs on a Mac
• Users can access a simple to use interface through any browser
• Easy to set up, but good functionality for user permissions, security, and creation of a branded/customized site
• Can log user activity
• Allows users to retrieve and/or change their passwords (with no administrator intervention)
• Reasonable cost, a Mac, an internet connection, and the software is $269 for 32 users/simultaneous active sessions and $449 for unlimited users and 256 simultaneous active sessions

Here are the steps to set up:

• Grab a domain, or create a sub-domain of an existing domain (e.g., files.yourdomain.com), and point it (setting the A record) at the fixed IP address of a Mac Mini (probably possible to set up on an existing server, but I opted for simplicity/stability of dedicating a computer to this service), I also set the reverse DNS with our ISP, but for this service I don’t think this matters (does matter for a mail server)
• Acquire and set up a SSL certificate (you could do self-signed, but for the professional image I think better to get one from a certification authority, they are cheap anyway)
• Install Rumpus and set up, customize the web settings (keeping simple, or go wild with html templates in the WFMTemplates folder) and make sure connections are forced to HTTPS and FTPS so all data transfers are encrypted
• Set up a folder structure that works for your team, use aliases to control/restrict access for vendors/partners (I created a Partner folder and put a folder for each vendor/partner in there, those users get access to those folders only, then I drop an alias of whatever they need to see in their folder)
• Hook up a big external drive and turn on Time Machine
• Create a backup image of the Mac Mini with SuperDuper once or twice a week (on additional external hard drives), and store at least one of those off site
• Set up users and send them a message with their login into (configure so they can retrieve and change their login info)

I would also add that John of Maxum was EXTREMELY responsive to questions I had, leading to me understanding that:

• Demo version of Rumpus is for both Standard and Pro versions
• You do not have to use Open Directory to set up more than 100 accounts, his view that performance would still be good at 500+ accounts and 20-30 concurrent users

Next up, looking at moving from Evernote to Samepage for team collaboration …