Date: May 9, 2017 (Tuesday)
Just how complex is it to provide the world’s most trusted cloud ECM service while maintaining more than 99.9% uptime? As you’ll see from our notice below….very.
Rest assured that our commitment to boosting efficiency of data access, ensuring tight control of sensitive information, and cutting costs for customers remains of paramount importance to us. The changes being announced will enable us to continue to support these goals.
This posting is to make you aware of some important changes coming in July that may affect you if you are using very old, legacy web browsers to access ImageSilo® or if you are using the Data Delivery/Backup Job functionality. Please read the information carefully and assess whether you may be affected. Then work with your ImageSilo reseller to plan for your transition to today’s faster, more robust and secure options.
Discontinuation of Legacy ImageSilo Websites
It is important to note the upcoming discontinuation of the following legacy ImageSilo websites:
This July, we will begin upgrading ImageSilo’s core infrastructure. The first of these changes will be to replace our underlying storage systems, transitioning from a CIFS-based file storage system to an object-based storage system. This new storage will bring with it a number of key enhancements including significantly higher levels of file integrity, greater availability, and improved performance for document access. The storage system upgrade and transition is expected to be transparent to our users as have been the multiple upgrades to our storage infrastructure in years past.
This storage system upgrade required that we rewrite the file access code for ImageSilo to support accessing documents via object keys (where each file is accessed via a unique key) rather than CIFS file shares (where each file is accessed via a directory structure such as \\server\share\directory\filename). The code changes were primarily made in the R82 version released this past March, with some additional changes being made to the upcoming R83 release expected in July, and they represented a significant investment in ImageSilo. When this R83 upgrade is rolled out to ImageSilo, the back-end servers (what we internally refer to as “application servers”) will be able to interact with both object-based and CIFS-based storage systems. Afterwards, the front-end servers (what we refer to as “web servers”) will be upgraded. The front-end web servers will be able to interpret the communication from the back-end application servers regardless of whether documents are stored in CIFS or in an object store.
However, the legacy ImageSilo websites listed above run on extremely old code and, as such, will not be able to support documents stored in the new object storage systems. These sites were originally provided as a courtesy to our customers to allow users to gracefully transition from old, outdated web browsers to newer versions without losing access to their critical business information. Below, please find some information pertaining to each legacy site:
https://classic.imagesilo.com – This site was provided to support the basic, but familiar, classic ImageSilo user interface while users became accustomed to the new JavaScript-based interface. This legacy site is running ImageSilo R61, which was released in September, 2008.
https://ie7.imagesilo.com – This site was provided as the last version of ImageSilo to support Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. This legacy site is running ImageSilo R71, which was released in July, 2010.
https://ie8.imagesilo.com – This site was provided as the last version of ImageSilo to support Microsoft Internet Explorer 8. This legacy site is running ImageSilo R78, which was released in May 2014.
https://ie9ie10.imagesilo.com – This site was provided as the last version of ImageSilo to support Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, and the last version to be tested and validated for use with Internet Explorer 10. This legacy site is running ImageSilo R79.1, which was released in December, 2014.
To put this in perspective, it is important to keep in mind just how old these aged versions of Internet Explorer actually are:
- Internet Explorer 7 was released in October, 2006 (11 years old)
- Internet Explorer 8 was released March, 2009 (8 years old)
- Internet Explorer 9 was released March, 2011 (6 years old)
- Internet Explorer 10 was released September, 2012 (5 years old)
- Internet Explorer 11 was released October, 2013 and is the current version Internet Explorer (almost 4 years old)
On January 12, 2016, Microsoft officially ended support for all versions prior to IE 11, strongly encouraging all users to upgrade after extended, multi-year awareness campaigns. Since that time, Microsoft no longer provides security updates or technical support for any of those older versions, leaving them extremely vulnerable to security threats and malware.
The current version of ImageSilo (82) supports Internet Explorer 11, as well as the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. In fact, ImageSilo has supported non-Internet Explorer browsers since 2010, eliminating the need select a specific vendor’s browser in order be able to access ImageSilo.
We believe the vast majority of users who are still accessing the soon-to-be-discontinued legacy ImageSilo sites are be doing so out of habit, rather than necessity. Those users needn’t worry. When those sites are discontinued, their URL’s will automatically redirect the user to the current ImageSilo R83 website. For the small number of users that we believe are using the site due to the requirements of their outdated browsers, we apologize. We understand that some organizations are a bit slow to upgrade, even when faced with serious security issues. Please believe us – this decision was not taken lightly. But we believe the benefits to our users far outweigh the need to support technology that was completely replaced in 2013 and was entirely discontinued in January, 2016.
In the next week, we plan to place a notification on the login page of each affected website, alerting users that effective July 7, 2017, the website will automatically redirect users to the current version of ImageSilo – the same one which is located at https://login.imagesilo.com. The notification will also include a link to this memo.
Data Delivery and Backup Jobs
A number of ImageSilo customers use ImageSilo’s Data Delivery service for one or more of three purposes: (1) obtain a copy of the entity database for analysis and reporting, (2) obtain ad hoc copies of data groups stored on ImageSilo, and (3) maintain an automated, ongoing copy of all documents and changes to those documents for one or more projects stored in ImageSilo. The changes that will take place in July will NOT impact the ability of customers to obtain a copy of the entity database for analysis and reporting. However, it will affect customers using backup jobs to obtain copies of documents as this functionality has been replaced with the new Automated Migration capabilities that were introduced in ImageSilo R82 in March, 2017.
Currently, backup jobs are enabled only for Data Delivery customers who pay a monthly charge to obtain a copy of their dedicated database and have the ability to run backup jobs. These backup jobs basically created a duplicate copy of the required data in the exact same file structure used on ImageSilo to store the documents. The copy was then placed into an optionally encrypted package (ZIP file) and delivered to a Secure FTP site. In planning for the upgrade to an object-based storage system, our engineers foresaw that once files were no longer stored in a CIFS-based file storage system, our ability to create a duplicate copy of the required files in the same file structure would be lost. That prompted the creation of new Automated Migration capabilities to fulfill the needs of customers using backup jobs.
Prior to ImageSilo R82, migrations were limited to users manually “tagging” specific types of documents they wanted migrated. Those documents went into a list, and when the user was ready to have their list processed, they “submitted” that list to be run by ImageSilo. Most of these users then had CD’s or DVD’s shipped to them that contained the selected documents.
Since March, in ImageSilo R82, the new Automated Migration functionality allows users to submit data groups and projects for migration to the same effect as submitting individual data groups for backup or creating a recurring (continuous) backup job for projects. Not only do the new Automated Migrations process all types of documents, but the results are now delivered via optionally encrypted packages (ZIP files) on your Secure FTP site that we host for you. Creating a new Automated Migration for a project allows administrators to specify to copy existing documents, and whether to copy new documents as they come into the system or new versions as they are created. You can choose to include annotations in the migrated data groups (which can subsequently be imported into PaperVision Enterprise, Digitech’s on premise content management system), as well as schedule how frequently the new items are migrated, packaged, and delivered to your Secure FTP site. Notably, the charge for migrations has been significantly reduced and, unlike backup jobs, use of this new functionality doesn’t require customers to sign up for the Data Delivery service.
We suggest that customers that utilize backup jobs today make the switch to Automated Migration today. To do so, contact our ImageSilo Administration team to enable Migration for your entity. Our team will verify your existing Secure FTP site and credentials (that you already use to obtain your backup job data), and enable the creation of migration jobs for your entity. Then, using the Administration portal, select the project you’d like to automatically migrate, and choose the “Migrate” option at the top of the window. You’ll be prompted to give the job a name, select which items to migrate, and specify the frequency to perform the migration. From that point on, ImageSilo will start migrating all existing documents (and optionally new versions and annotations) and deliver them to your Secure FTP site in the same manner that backup jobs were processed. If you’d like to have the migration continue processing from where your backup job left off for a given project, our ImageSilo administrators can provide the Next Document and Next Object values to specify in the migration job.
If you have any questions or comments, or need any assistance taking advantage of the exciting new Automated Migration capabilities, please contact your ImageSilo Reseller or our ImageSilo Administrators at siloadmin@imagesilo.com or toll-free at 866.374.3569. We greatly appreciate your business and we take very seriously the immense trust you place in Digitech Systems. Every decision that we make and every upgrade that we roll out is made with that trust in the forefront of our minds.
ImageSilo Administration
866.374.3569 (303.493.6900)
siloadmin@imagesilo.com
