Question Pushing Files from a NAS or cloud storage to PC's

[Regk]

Mods, my apologies in advance if this is in the wrong forum. it straddles the line between storage & networking, please move if needed!

I am wondering if anyone can shed some light or point me in the right direction here. At my workplace we are trying to setup a system were we have files stored locally (training PowerPoints) and would want to have one admin who controls those files exclusively to make sure they are up to date, relevant, etc. What would be the icing on the cake if there was a way to automatically push those files or updates to a users PC and have them sorted locally (and be updated automatically) on each users system. I have googled pushing files to PC's to no avail, and I was hoping that I could tap into some of the fantastic knowledge here...

To give some context, or organization uses SharePoint & OneDrive, and i am thinking there has to be a way to accomplish it that way, however the wheels move very slowly at corporate IT and as an end user ( who is the office de facto "tech guy") this has become my responsibility to figure out. The key here is to have each user have a copy of our training materials stored locally on each of their computers, as we often facilitate in remote locations with no internet access. Our material frequently changes and having them download and store their own local companies has become a nightmare, as folks often have old or outdated versions etc.. having a centrally stored location that could automatically push those files to a users PC would be the dream...

Thinking on a more local level. I was thinking we could perhaps get a NAS, store the files on there, and then attempt to set the users up to have the files automatically download/update whenever they are connected to the internet/in the office.. ... somehow.... lol!

Is this possible? what is the easiest most straightforward way to accomplish this with a minimum of user input? anyone have experience doing something similar? In my mind it's basically just a reverse backup lol... I've been a long time member here and have seen the community sole some doosy's in my time... I greatly appreciate your advice here!

Thanks!

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Mods, my apologies in advance if this is in the wrong forum. it straddles the line between storage & networking, please move if needed!

I am wondering if anyone can shed some light or point me in the right direction here. At my workplace we are trying to setup a system were we have files stored locally (training PowerPoints) and would want to have one admin who controls those files exclusively to make sure they are up to date, relevant, etc. What would be the icing on the cake if there was a way to automatically push those files or updates to a users PC and have them sorted locally (and be updated automatically) on each users system. I have googled pushing files to PC's to no avail, and I was hoping that I could tap into some of the fantastic knowledge here...

To give some context, or organization uses SharePoint & OneDrive, and i am thinking there has to be a way to accomplish it that way, however the wheels move very slowly at corporate IT and as an end user ( who is the office de facto "tech guy") this has become my responsibility to figure out. The key here is to have each user have a copy of our training materials stored locally on each of their computers, as we often facilitate in remote locations with no internet access. Our material frequently changes and having them download and store their own local companies has become a nightmare, as folks often have old or outdated versions etc.. having a centrally stored location that could automatically push those files to a users PC would be the dream...

Thinking on a more local level. I was thinking we could perhaps get a NAS, store the files on there, and then attempt to set the users up to have the files automatically download/update whenever they are connected to the internet/in the office.. ... somehow.... lol!

Is this possible? what is the easiest most straightforward way to accomplish this with a minimum of user input? anyone have experience doing something similar? In my mind it's basically just a reverse backup lol... I've been a long time member here and have seen the community sole some doosy's in my time... I greatly appreciate your advice here!

Thanks!

Given my reputation here for posting Tolstoy's "War and Peace", I'm just a bit reticent about responding. I long ago retired from office-work and being the "IT-go-to-guy". I persisted with my world-view of my work experience and built a home network with a server. Some software can be installed on several machines (with a license for each) to access a single file store on the server (provided that you only open the application on one machine and not all simultaneously.) Other software is meant to be networked accessing the same database and files. Quick-Books or ORACLE front-end applications might be examples. But for me, I have each of my workstations accessing the same file (one at a time), then backing up to the local machine.

There must be a way for the employee machines/devices to auto-download new versions of files, but unless you have employees do it manually, it would have to be a programmed solution. (Maybe, though, just maybe -- there is some software solution available. It could be something very simple. It might even be share-ware.) Maybe someone could write a VB-script that would execute at boot-time, check the currency of local versus centrally-stored files, ask the user to continue-yes-or-no, and perform the transfer.

In other words, you may be looking for something that would "push" server files to local machines, but maybe the solution could work more as I described it.

 

[Tech Junky]

All you need to do is "sync" them. If it's setup correctly it should automatically copy over to the users. Using a Linux based option you can setup a "cron" to execute the commands you want to do.

The issue being that they need to be on the network to get the file "pushed" to them or refreshed. You can set the timer on the cron though to minutes or hours or days or weeks to trigger.

Using "rsrync" will act as an incremental "backup" but in this case more of a restore / push. If it the file matches then it skips copying it and moves on.

It depends on how many users we're talking about here as well since this is mostly a manual process per machine being added on the server side to push the files out periodically. If there's already a backup solution in place then you could probably add a group that should be synced and the file / decks you want to push and just make the timer / frequency a bit tighter to make sure everyone gets the update. Setup a user requirement to be connected to the network on a certain day / time period to ensure the update hits their machine.

 

[Tech Junky]

Yes. You can set it to run as often or as little as you like. Then you just copy the working line for each machine you want to sync to.