MyWorkDrive Product Overview Whitepaper

December 5, 2025

Azure Files architecture showing on-prem cache and cloud sync

Secure File Access Without Migration: Inside Our New Whitepaper

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Organizations have poured years and budget into building Windows file servers, NAS, and cloud file repositories, yet users still struggle with clunky VPN connections, inconsistent experiences across devices, and stalled “move everything to SharePoint” projects. At the same time, security teams are under pressure to deliver Zero Trust access, full auditability, and data residency without breaking what already works.

Our new whitepaper, “Secure File Access Without Migration: MyWorkDrive Product Overview”, is written for IT, security, and infrastructure leaders who want to modernize file access without rebooting their entire storage strategy. It explains how MyWorkDrive sits in front of your existing repositories and delivers secure, HTTPS-based access with Zero Trust controls while leaving identities, NTFS permissions, and data location under your control.

This blog highlights the core ideas from the whitepaper and shows what you will gain by downloading and sharing it with your team.

What The Whitepaper Covers

At a high level, the whitepaper positions MyWorkDrive as a secure translation layer between your existing storage and modern access requirements. Instead of introducing a new repository or forcing a migration, the platform exposes your current file systems over HTTPS with consistent web, mapped drive, and mobile access.

There are four main themes:

How to deliver VPN-free, Zero Trust file access to existing storage.
How to unify Windows file servers, Azure Files, Azure Blob, SharePoint, OneDrive, and cloud-managed SMB into a single access plane.
How to apply modern security controls such as DLP, device approval, and SIEM logging without re-permissioning or migrating data.
How to deploy and validate MyWorkDrive in real environments using the implementation checklist and sample use cases.

If your team is evaluating VPN alternatives, hybrid file access, or secure remote access to SMB and Microsoft 365 storage, this whitepaper is designed to be a practical blueprint rather than a generic overview.

Key Takeaways

Here are some of the most important insights you will see detailed in the document.

1. Modern file access without migration

This whitepaper makes a simple but important point: you do not need to move terabytes of data into a new platform just to modernize remote access. MyWorkDrive exposes your existing file shares and repositories over HTTPS so users can connect from browsers, mapped drives, or mobile devices without a VPN, and without copying data into a new system.

Key takeaway: You can modernize user access and security while keeping file data where it is today.

2. One interface across on premises and cloud storage

The product overview walks through the storage types MyWorkDrive supports, including: traditional Windows SMB shares, Azure NetApp Files and Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP, Azure Files (SMB or REST), SharePoint document libraries, OneDrive for Business, and Azure Blob with Data Lake Gen2.

Each system keeps its native permissions and governance model. NTFS ACLs, SharePoint and OneDrive policies, and Data Lake ACLs remain authoritative while MyWorkDrive simply brokers secure access.

Key takeaway: You gain hybrid visibility through one interface without re-permissioning or flattening existing security models.

3. End user experience that feels familiar

This whitepaper emphasizes that security controls only work when they are usable. End users see:

A web client with single sign on, familiar folder structure, drag and drop, and optional organizational branding.
Mapped drive clients for Windows and macOS that preserve drive letters, support line of business applications, and keep command line and scripted workflows working.
Mobile apps on iOS and Android for viewing, editing where allowed, and uploading directly into project folders, with local caching controlled by policy.

Key takeaway: Users get a modern experience without having to relearn how to work with files.

4. Zero Trust security and governance controls

Security is treated as a foundation, not a bolt-on. This whitepaper details a core security posture that includes:

TLS 1.2 or higher for all connections.
Authentication and MFA at your existing identity provider (Active Directory with SAML or Microsoft Entra ID).
A least privilege authorization model that never elevates permissions beyond what the storage system already grants.
A Zero Trust network access design with no VPN requirement and no inbound firewall ports when using the Cloud Web Connector.

On top of that, optional controls provide DLP per share (download blocking, watermarking, clipboard restrictions), device approval for mapped drive and mobile clients, granular public link policies, guest access via Entra B2B, and centralized logging to your SIEM.

Key takeaway: You can layer modern DLP, device, and audit controls on top of your existing storage and identity stack.

5. Proven outcomes in real environments

This whitepaper includes short use cases that show what customers achieve in practice, such as VPN elimination for a healthcare organization, Microsoft 365 license optimization for manufacturers, multi repository unification after mergers, and secure partner collaboration using public links with strict expiration and download limits.

These examples align with the broader market analysis that shows unified secure enterprise file access represents a roughly 12.98 billion USD unique TAM across EFSS, VPN alternatives, and hybrid file access segments.

Key takeaway: MyWorkDrive is not a lab concept. It is a pattern that has been validated across regulated and hybrid environments.

Architecture, identity, and deployment in plain language

A core section of this whitepaper explains the three layer architecture that underpins MyWorkDrive: identity provider, MyWorkDrive server, and storage. Users authenticate to your IdP, establish an encrypted HTTPS session to MyWorkDrive, and then the platform brokers secure, TLS protected access to your storage.

Identity remains under your control. You choose between:

Active Directory, often with SAML SSO from providers such as Okta, Duo, ADFS, Ping, or OneLogin.
Microsoft Entra ID, where users sign in with their Microsoft credentials and Conditional Access, MFA, and tenant policies are applied natively.

For deployment, this whitepaper outlines four publishing patterns you can adopt:

Direct HTTPS on IIS with a public or enterprise CA certificate.
Reverse proxy or WAF with session persistence and HTTP compression disabled on MyWorkDrive paths.
Microsoft Entra Application Proxy for AD plus SAML environments that do not permit inbound ports.
Cloud Web Connector using outbound only Cloudflare tunnels on port 7844, which avoids inbound firewall changes.

A concise implementation snapshot shows how many organizations install, connect identity, publish initial shares, test clients, and configure DLP policies within the first week, then expand to pilot users and formalize change control in week two and beyond.

Who Should Read This Whitepaper

The document is particularly useful for:

IT leaders replacing legacy VPN or RDP based file access with a Zero Trust, HTTPS based model.
Security and compliance teams who need strong audit trails, DLP controls, and data sovereignty while leaving data on existing file servers and cloud repositories.
Architects planning hybrid file access between Windows SMB, Azure storage, and Microsoft 365.
Organizations evaluating MyWorkDrive as an alternative to sync and share platforms or complex global file systems, and who want to preserve NTFS and Microsoft 365 governance.

If you are also exploring related topics such as modernizing file servers without full cloud migration, you may find it useful to pair this whitepaper with our content on migrating file servers to the cloud.

Next Steps

If you want a structured, vendor specific view of how to deliver secure, VPN free file access without migrating data, the fastest way to get it is to download the full MyWorkDrive Product Overview whitepaper and share it with your architecture, security, and operations stakeholders.