REMIRA Replaces C-5, Nextcloud, and FTP With Files.com for 200 GB Database Backups

REMIRA is one of Europe's leading providers of supply chain and omnichannel commerce software, serving retail, logistics and industrial companies with everything from demand forecasting and inventory optimization to merchandise management and point of sale. The company does not just license its software. It installs, supports and debugs its ERP and POS systems at 400 to 600 installed customer sites, and debugging a database problem means getting the database: when a customer's system misbehaves, REMIRA pulls a backup of that customer's database into its own environment for analysis. Those databases run from 10 MB up to 200 GB, and a typical return trip moves 80 to 100 GB. File exchange is not a side channel at REMIRA. It is the step between a broken retail system and the engineer who can fix it.

Every Large Backup Fell to the Path Customers Resented

REMIRA's exchange estate had grown into three systems, each covering a gap in the others. A transfer platform called C-File ("C-5") gave customers a decent web interface but capped transfers at 30 GB, which put nearly every serious database out of its reach. So a self-hosted FTP server stayed in service for anything large, and Nextcloud ran alongside for sharing.

The FTP path is where the cost landed, and it landed on customers at the worst possible moment. To send a backup, a customer needed an FTP client installed, and their security team had to open firewall exceptions on both sides to reach REMIRA's server, all while their ERP or POS issue was still open. REMIRA had outgrown a setup that taxed the customer as the price of getting help.

“Our customers don't like the, 'I need an FTP client,' thing, and they always need to adjust the firewalls for our FTP server.”

The obvious fix, moving everything to the web, did not survive contact with REMIRA's customer base. Its customers are mostly large companies that route web traffic through corporate proxies, which made browser transfers slow and unreliable at exactly the file sizes that mattered. That is why REMIRA's consultants had been requesting dedicated SFTP access through customer firewalls in the first place.

“With bigger customers we have the issue that most of the web traffic is done via proxy on the customer side, and it's not that fast or that reliable most of the time.”

So consultants kept moving 80 to 100 GB per trip by hand with FileZilla-class desktop clients, and none of it carried the governance the data deserved. The legacy stack had no usable audit log, so nobody could say who had downloaded or shared what. It had no retention policy, so copies of customer databases sat until someone remembered to delete them. Access across all three systems was managed by hand. Under GDPR, with German data residency, audit logging and scheduled file expiration as hard requirements, this was no longer an estate REMIRA could keep running.

The Fix Had to Speak Both Browser and SFTP

The requirements described the gap precisely. One platform had to offer a web page a customer could use with nothing installed and no firewall change, and at the same time offer real protocol endpoints—SFTP, FTP and WebDAV—for the proxy-bound enterprise networks and the consultants working inside them. It had to carry files up to 200 GB. It had to log every download and share, expire files on a schedule, and hold the data in Germany. C-5 had the web face without the size or the protocols. The FTP server had the protocol without anything else.

REMIRA selected Files.com to be that single exchange layer.

“Files.com is some kind of the best of both worlds, because C-5 was quite good with web GUI.”

One Exchange Layer for Hundreds of Customer Environments

Files.com became the one platform between REMIRA and every customer environment, reachable by whichever path each customer's network allows. The whole exchange runs under REMIRA's own branded domain, so what a customer sees carries REMIRA's name.

For customers whose networks permit browser uploads, the exchange is a web page. Each customer gets its own folder structure with an inbox share link for pushing database backups in and an outbox link for pulling fixes and artifacts back out. Nothing to install, no firewall ticket, no account to manage. Files.com also removed the 30 GB ceiling that had kept the FTP server alive.

REMIRA made that structure self-provisioning. The team built its own automation against the Files.com API, driven from its TopDesk service desk: a request creates the customer's folder set and its inbox and outbox links, and the same automation cleans up stale folders when an exchange is finished. Adding the next customer costs a ticket, not an afternoon of setup.

For consultants working in environments where the browser route is unsuitable, Files.com's SFTP endpoint and desktop app replaced the dedicated connections into REMIRA's own server. A consultant uploads an 80 to 100 GB backup from the customer's premises without asking anyone to change a firewall rule. Because those logins happen inside environments REMIRA does not control, they were hardened during rollout: session lifetimes were cut from 30 days to one day, with per-user two-factor authentication.

The governance the legacy stack never had is now enforced by the platform. Files.com retention policies expire customer database copies on schedule. The audit log records every download and every share. All of it is stored in Files.com's Frankfurt region, keeping the data in Germany on GDPR grounds. And REMIRA consolidated its outbound software distribution onto the same platform: a single share-link hierarchy publishes every product release, with each customer pointed at its subfolders.

Terabytes a Month, and No More Firewall Tickets

With Files.com in production, REMIRA retired the FTP server, C-5 and Nextcloud, replacing a three-system estate and its firewall ritual with one governed exchange.

• Customer-side firewall exceptions are gone. Customers can use browser links where their networks permit them, while consultants can use SFTP where the browser route is unsuitable.
• The 30 GB ceiling is gone. Transfers up to 200 GB run through the same platform as everything else, at terabyte-scale monthly volumes.
• Every download and share is on the record, and database copies expire on schedule instead of accumulating. The audit logging and retention GDPR demanded are enforced by Files.com rather than remembered by a person.
• Onboarding the next customer exchange is a service-desk request. REMIRA's automation creates the folders and links against the Files.com API, and nothing lingers once it goes stale.
• Release distribution to the entire installed base runs from one share hierarchy instead of ad hoc delivery.

Debugging Starts With the Database, Not the Firewall

Today, when an ERP or POS system at one of REMIRA's customers needs attention, the work begins with the data instead of the network. The customer, or the consultant standing in their server room, sends the backup through Files.com over whichever path that environment already permits, and the analysis starts. The copy lands in Frankfurt, expires on its schedule, and every access is logged. What used to open with a request to the customer's security team now opens with the file.

The larger point is the one REMIRA's old estate spent years proving in the negative: a web interface customers will actually use and the protocol endpoints enterprise networks actually require do not have to live in different products. REMIRA ran three systems because each had half of the answer. Files.com is where both halves turned out to be one platform.