In the mid 90's our city got burned by a proprietary digital scaning/storage system, and we have 2 years of data that is all but unreadable.  We are a bit gunshy on moving to full digital, but it looks like we are "pulling" the trigger, and FM containers have won the confidence of our end-users and administration.

 

I'm responsible for implementing this system, and I want to take the best long-range approach I can.  I'm confident on the longevity of FM (we've been using it since the early 90's) - but I do need to plan for a worst case scenario. There certainly may come a day when I need access to these documents, not through Filemaker. 

 

So - the question is - should I go with open container storage so the documents stay in their native format (jpegs, pdf, etc) - or should I go with secure storage, so the files are incripted?  Being a local goverment entitity, almost all of our files are subject to open record requests, so the privacy factor is not a huge concern.

 

Thoughts on this issue?

Secure storage will prevent anything but FileMaker from being able to access the contents of containers.

Even without secure storage allowing anything but Filemaker to touch the externally stored container objects is problematic as Filemaker is sensitive to changes in those objects that it does not do.

if you need application agnostic container content handling then 360works supercontainer is your best option i think.

Thanks for the reply Kris - much appreciated!

 

Do you happen to know - if I switch a container field from secure to open now, will the documents that have been previously encrypted return to their native format?