Collaba: Files & Documents

Store, share and manage files and documents easily and centrally through Collaba. A personal space can be provided to each user for storing files and documents. Collaborative spaces for each group a user is a member of are also available. Each group space can contain a drop-box, a pick-up box, shared boxes, and project spaces.

Virtual File System

In addition to acting as a standalone collaborative file server, Collaba's Virtual File System can also connect to other file servers to provide transparent centralized access to user files. Collaba supports many kinds of file servers:

WebDAV | FTP | SMB (Samba) | SAN

This means for example that students and teachers can have access to their personal files from home, even though these files might actually reside on a file server that is behind a firewall (depending on what you decide to authorize of course).

Office suite, Versioning, Scripting, Anti-virus, etc.

Collaba's Virtual File System provides many additional features such as:

Office productivity suite: Collaba integrates with Zoho to provide on-line editing of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice and other office documents.
Versioning: the ability to create, retain and restore multiple versions of a document.
Scripting: a scripting language allows administrators and experienced users to create powerful workflows and automated processes attached to simple directories. Developers can even write scripts extensions in Java.
Anti-virus: the VFS can be connected with an anti-virus scanning facility (such as ClamAV) to guard against viruses
Metadata: Dublin Core metadata can be attached to any file or directory
Server-to-server copy: files and directories can be copied from one place to another without ever downloading them

Desktop applications

Collaba's Virtual File System can be used and managed through its web portal, but also using efficient desktop applications:

Free open-source software:

... and any WebDAV or FTP-compatible client application!

Proprietary software:

Microsoft Windows' built-in client
Apple MacOS X's built-in client
Adobe Acrobat 5, GoLive, Photoshop, +
Macromedia Dreamweaver
Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, +
BitKinex, SmartFTP, Fetch, Transmit, ...

Technical details

The VFS is essentially a central protocol-neutral file access proxy. You can use it through the web portal, a WebDAV client, or an FTP client, and it can allow you to access files located on Collaba, on a WebDAV server, an FTP server, a SMB server or a SAN.

The actual structure of the VFS that users see can be fully customized using an XML-like VFS construction language.

Transparent connectivity with external file servers can be configured manually, or can be configured dynamically using LDAP-supplied data.

Other VFS features include: disk quotas, Qualified Dublin Core metadata, clustering support, automatic per-group special folders, WebDAV quick-access links, auto-zip/unzip when uploading/downloading folders, rich HTML and text editor, inline multimedia file viewer, quick access to MacOS X volume mounts, and more.

Contents

Collaba: Files & Documents

Virtual File System

Office suite, Versioning, Scripting, Anti-virus, etc.

Desktop applications