3 Good Reasons Not To Ban P2P File Sharing In Your Business

Any business owner who has experienced having their network crippled by having unwanted intruders brought on by Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing will want to ban their its use from their network. It's only natural to protect your resources from any and all threats that hamper productivity and cost money. But what if protecting your resources means that you are ignoring some key benefits to your business?

P2P file sharing has some great business advantages:

    Get information farther quicker - The idea behind peer-to-peer file sharing is sharing information. With the right infrastructure in place, businesses can interact with partners and vendors around the world regardless of time differences. Imagine working late needing specs for a presentation and realizing that the Rome office had an older version while the Cadiz office had the latest changes. Despite the time difference between each of these locations, having access to these files whenever you need them contributes to increased productivity and a healthy bottom line.

    More demands equal more capacity - Any server that experiences more demand is prone to bottlenecking, which means that higher demands for information mean slower network. With P2P file sharing, the more demand on the system, the more peers are present the higher the total system capacity. The original content distributor does not have to worry about adding more memory or getting a bigger server because there is more demand

    Reduce the risk of network crash - Network crashes are paralyzing to say the least. The worst part is when the network crash is fixed, the paralysis changes to frustration as the network slowly crawls. With P2P file sharing the whole network doesn't crash just because one computer crashes. If one peer on the network malfunctions, there are other peers from which you can get information. P2P file sharing systems have built in redundancy which makes them more reliable in the event of a crash.

In order for these advantages to be felt, businesses need to have proper controls in place

    How will file sharing will be used by your business? - Finding out how P2P is relevant to your business is key. Working with outside vendors, remote contractors these are some of the factors to consider.

    Set up and test the P2P's system integrity - Once you realize the value of P2P file sharing for your business, setting it up is just one part of the equation. Testing the integrity of the system and making sure it is fully compliant with information security standards is essential.

    Establish procedures and guidelines about what types of file sharing is permitted - Now that you have the system in place, what are the rules? Having easy to understand, enforceable procedures and guidelines brings everything together.

    Train all employees, vendors, contractors - Whether they are in-house and outsourced all who need access to your company's information need to be trained thoroughly on how to use this new system.