Hi,
One of our customers has asked me to research options for storing and retrieving files for them, and since this place is the fount of all knowledge I thought I'd ask here first.

The customer wants to have a system which their customers can use to retrieve or store files in their own private folders (using HTTPS protocols).

Think of this as like a set of secure, web accessible (via HTTP protocol) web store.

They have two options for products:

1. They rent some space off of a company and then sublet this space to their customers to use portions of.

2. They buy some software and host this software/service on their (Probably Windows) servers in-house and customers then rent the space from them.

We are talking a total storage capability of probably under 100-200MB in total and the main requirements are for secure (HTTPS) based sending and retrieval/polling of said folders.

Each customer would ideally have a secure login/password and would have to have access only to their assigned storage "area" [no common areas].

The clients that do the sending and retrieving of the files will be PC based and will be running a OS like Windows 2000.

Anyone got any existing products or knows of companies that offer this service.

In principle this is very similar to companies that offer web based file storage e.g. for backups etc. But I don't know of any products off the top of my head.
So any input is appreciated.

BTW: This is not some illegal file swapping operation, it merely boring stuff like commercial invoices and the like, but the principles are probably the same.

Just out of curiousity, why is SFTP not an option?

google turned up:
sendfile.net
SecureTransport
UnlimitedFTP Secure (uses https)

Also, CuteFTP Pro supports file transfers over HTTPS.

The customer needs something that works behind their customers corporate firewalls without changing existing firewall configurations.

Most firewalls allow HTTP based outbound requests, which is what the sending process does/involves, and also what the polling process does [it makes a outbound https request to a known URL etc].

So, there are no changes to existing firewall rules . e.g. if you can surf to a https website, you can use the web storage service for sending and receivng.

Yeah, I know this technically allows all kinds of nasties back down the wire to the polling system, but since its a secure link and only known "safe" files are going to be sent or received I think most customers will be happy with the concept.

Heck, most corporates would let their users surf to websites and download stuff [e.g. executable software] and the reality is that this is a more controlled version of that concept and the files we are talking about won't be executable in any case, and good virus checking should stop any nasties in any case.

I figured as much. Some of those links from google are pretty interesting. Lemme know what you decide to do.

Helllo There

This would be fairly easy to set up using a standard webserver (IIS) in the case of windows 2000.
All you need (beside the hardware an a windows 2000 server license) is:
a file-upload component (take a look at SA-Fileup)
an ssl-certificate
a bit of ASP-programming

It wouldn't be hard to set up. Feel free to contact me if you want more info

best regards:

Ole

Is WebDAV an option?

As a point of example, Apple used it for their MacOS X built-in internet filesharing. They probably still do, but I didn't feel like spending the money on something I never used except as a minor convenience.