I am very excited about the advent today of FileMaker Cloud. It is an excellent addition to the overall FileMaker Platform. Even in Version 1.0 we can see major benefits and uses for FileMaker Cloud. Over time and in succeeding versions, I believe these will get even better.

It is scalable, both up and down. It can meet rapidly changing needs for infrastructure to support FileMaker-based business management systems.

It is secure. Your files are encrypted. And data in transit are also encrypted. This is important to preserve the Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, and Resilience of your FileMaker business management systems.

It is part of the FileMaker Platform. Users can connect to its hosted files with FileMaker Pro, FileMaker GO, and WebDirect™ clients.

It requires minimal administrative attention once established. And while no system can ever be a fire-and-forget structure, FileMaker Cloud offers ease of management. Amazon Web Services handles the heavy lifting.

FileMaker Cloud introduces the industry-standard oAuth2 process to the FileMaker Platform. That process allows new options for Identity and Access Management. In Version 1.0 that is confined to credentials for managing the newly revamped FileMaker Server Admin Console. This will work with an administrator’s regular Amazon Account.

Such federated identity management support might possibly in the future allow developers to utilize other authentication platforms to validate user credentials. Then those other platforms could pass that validation to FileMaker Server and admit the user to specific files. And with correct file privileges to boot!

I want to congratulate FileMaker, Inc. and its Engineering, SQA, and Product Management Teams on this initial foray into the Cloud. I look forward to future enhancements to FileMaker Cloud.

Steven H. Blackwell