Case Study: FileCatalyst & CDMN

Hosted by the Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN), Canada 3.0 is Canada’s premier digital media forum where decision makers across industry, government, and academia converge to spark creativity, foster innovation and drive productivity.

The event included the Road to Banff Venture Forum pitch-off, where startups compete for all-expense-paid trips to the Banff Venture Forum. Registrants had a 30-minute opportunity to present to a panel of seasoned investors. Each participant received a videotape of their pitch and panel feedback.

CDMN was faced with the challenge of quickly and easily delivering these large video files to the appropriate individual once the conference and pitch-off concluded. Because each pitch included confidential financial and strategic information, the process had to be as secure as possible. In previous years, CDMN copied the applicants content onto a DVD and mailed it out, but the process was too slow, and the media was unreliable.

CDMN approached Canadian Cloud Computing to leverage its Trusted Canadian Cloud™ technology in order to distribute the videos online. They implemented a small secure cloud server that hosted the service and a scalable solution that ensured their storage needs were met. Bandwidth wasn’t an issue since the Trusted Canadian Cloud offers redundant high-speed pipes to the Internet. They determined that FileCatalyst was the best solution since it provides the speed, security, and reliability they required. FileCatalyst is immune to the effects that latency and packet loss have on traditional file transfer methods such as FTP, HTTP or CIFS.

FileCatalyst was deployed onto a single Nimbus cloud server with 1 VPU with 4 GB of RAM and 50 GB of disk storage. The cloud server easily supported multiple simultaneous downloads at accelerated speeds, which was required in order to handle multiple transfers.

In a matter of days, Canadian Cloud Computing went from receiving the initial request to the delivery of a highly successful solution. The solution included a cloud server and storage for two months from Canadian Cloud Computing as well as FileCatalyst Server and FileCatalyst Workflow software deployed on the Trusted Canadian Cloud. This solution allowed for easy uploads, fast and secure access, and satisfied conference organizers.

FileCatalyst Workflow allowed them to generate and send each participant a customized email that included a link to their file with a security PIN. Clicking on the link opened a web page where the participant could enter the PIN and download their file.

After the download completed, the sender also received an email notification for the successful transmission. The video files were then flagged for automatic deletion six weeks after the contest, and the cloud resources were released.