Introduction
Ohalo operates in the data governance space, helping large enterprises understand and manage their data landscape, particularly their unstructured data. This unstructured data – such as office documents – often resides across network drives, SharePoint, Google Drive, Gmail, Outlook, and more. Ohalo’s flagship product, Data X-Ray, enables organizations to scan these document stores to locate sensitive data or identify relevant information for specific business use cases. Installed on-premises within clients’ secure environments, Data X-Ray offers powerful support for records management, retention, and enterprise search needs. This functionality is also valuable for advanced applications, like developing AI models or chatbots with awareness of an organization’s unstructured data.
Data X-Ray’s three-part approach includes Discovery, where data is located across the network; Classification, where content is categorized based on its nature and sensitivity; and Remediation, which allows organizations to export results or integrate them into broader data catalog systems for enhanced governance.
“The tricky thing about data sources is that there are many different kinds of SMB servers and each one implements the SMB protocol in a slightly different way. So you need to have a very well-built strong SMB client that is robust and works with any SMB server.”
Alistair Jones – Co-Founder and CTO, Ohalo
The Challenge
In most enterprises, data is scattered across a range of sources. While platforms like SharePoint and OneDrive are common, network shares and file servers remain crucial data repositories. To access these file shares effectively, SMB is the protocol of choice. However, connecting seamlessly isn’t straightforward; there’s significant variation among SMB servers, as each one interprets and implements the protocol slightly differently. This variation demands a highly resilient and adaptable SMB client, one that can reliably connect to any SMB server regardless of its specific implementation. Developing this capability was essential to overcoming the integration challenge.
“We tried pretty much everything in the open-source, like two very compelling libraries that were addressing this space but they were not at the level of robustness that was required for enterprise software and we did not get the level of support that we required in order to be able to deliver a satisfactory solution to our enterprise clients then.”
Alistair Jones – Co-Founder and CTO, Ohalo
Why Ohalo Chose Visuality Systems
Ohalo explored various open-source options, including – two promising libraries aimed at this space. According to Alistair Jones, Co-Founder and CTO at Ohalo, these solutions didn’t provide the level of robustness necessary for enterprise-grade software, nor did they offer the support needed to ensure a reliable solution for their enterprise clients.
In their data scans, Ohalo needed to crawl through extensive file hierarchies and download every single file – a process that demands high endurance from the SMB client. Before using jNQ, they frequently encountered issues with open-source clients that couldn’t complete scans or that generated errors in the logs. With jNQ by Visuality Systems, however, these challenges disappeared; the solution performed seamlessly, even under heavy use.
Alistair also appreciated Visuality System’s effort to understand Ohalo’s specific requirements as a growing and innovative startup. This practical and needs-focused approach played a key role in their decision-making process.
“We had to do scans where we transferred terabytes and terabytes of data, crawling with heavy use of the jNQ SMB client and we could tell right away that it was not flaking out, it was able to handle the production load, it was able to work, that’s something that we had just never seen before.”
Alistair Jones – Co-Founder and CTO, Ohalo
The Results
The onboarding process was straightforward, as jNQ requires minimal setup. As Alistair described it, “It was truly a plug-and-play experience.” With just a few sample code examples and a library that Ohalo could easily integrate into their development environment, they were ready to go.
“The onboarding was relatively bare bones. You really don’t need much to get going with this particular piece of technology: a couple of snippets of example code and the library that you can just drop into your development environment, that was all we needed.”
Alistair Jones – Co-Founder and CTO, Ohalo
For Alistair and Ohalo, the primary goal was reliability – ensuring the solution could meet their enterprise-grade requirements. Open-source alternatives simply couldn’t deliver the necessary robustness or stability.
Alistair highlights that for serious enterprise needs, Visuality Systems stands out as the clear choice. “Save yourself the time – just go with Visuality Systems. It’s the only solution there,” he states. He emphasizes that open-source solutions often fall short, and developing an in-house alternative would consume valuable resources, diverting focus from strategic goals. Visuality Systems’ expertise has essentially solved the complex challenges of file transfer and directory listing, a process that would otherwise demand months of effort, specialized knowledge, and experience to replicate.
Alistair also values the level of support Visuality Systems provides, He describes their support engineers as highly responsive and proactive; in his most recent experience, the team ran sample code and tested his specific use case, demonstrating their commitment to customer enablement. This approach allowed him to assess a potential solution, ultimately building confidence in Visuality Systems as a trusted enabler for Ohalo’s business needs.
“If you need an enterprise-level solution then save yourself the time, just go with Visuality Systems. It’s the only solution there.”
Alistair Jones – Co-Founder and CTO, Ohalo
Get in Touch
Want to see similar results? Get in touch with us today! Our team of experts has years of experience in delivering SMB protocol solutions that work in any environments, from the simplest to the most challenging ones.
Raphael Barki, Head of Marketing, Visuality Systems
