Arkansas CAMA Technology Syncs Isolated County Networks Without Opening Inbound Ports

Arkansas CAMA Technology (ACT) is a full-service mass appraisal company. It has run countywide reappraisals for local government since 1992, on CAMA (computer-assisted mass appraisal) software its own people designed and programmed. And it goes a step further than most software vendors: ACT also runs day-to-day IT services for about 75 county assessor offices across three states. The servers in those counties, the networks they sit on, and the data moving between them are ACT's responsibility.

That data never stops moving. Mass appraisal runs on evidence: property photos, deeds, plats, and surveys, plus the appraisal database itself, entered on the county side and the ACT side at the same time. A field appraiser photographs a property, and staff at an ACT regional office need that photo in front of them when they work the same parcel. The CAMA application has to show current imagery on either side, and ACT's operating requirement is that a file entered at one site reaches the other within 5 to 15 minutes.

One more fact shaped everything that follows: each county network is deliberately its own contained network, separate from ACT and from every other county. ACT's entire service model puts time-critical files between networks that must never be joined.

Files.com gave ACT a repeatable way to replace its per-county FTP infrastructure: Agents inside the county and regional networks connect outbound over HTTPS and synchronize appraisal files in both directions without bridging those networks or exposing an inbound port.

Fifteen Years on FTP, One Open Port per County

For 15 years, those files moved over FTP servers inside each county network, with GoodSync handling CAMA data transfer and remote-management tools, LogMeIn and NinjaOne, pressed into service as file movers when nothing else fit. The remote tools were constrained by file-size limits that appraisal data regularly exceeded. The FTP servers had a worse problem: each one meant an open FTP port on a government network.

The cost landed on people, not just firewalls. Support staff and field appraisers depend on file movement to do their jobs at all. When a file stalls, an appraiser sits waiting on data instead of working parcels. And the stakes peak during the Board of Equalization cycle, when counties pull parcels for taxpayer appeals and must have current photos attached. Stale imagery is a failure in front of the taxpayer.

Isolation Was the Point

The obvious fixes were off the table, because the isolation was deliberate. When two servers share a network, a PowerShell script and XCOPY move files just fine, and ACT uses exactly that internally. But its clients are not on ACT's network, for good reason: each county is its own contained, secure network, and bridging them would undo the security model the counties are supposed to have. Government firewall rules restrict which ports can be opened. The sync had to run in both directions, because data entry happens on both sides simultaneously. And any replacement had to roll out county by county across dozens of live production environments, without interrupting an operation that had run for 15 years.

So the fix had a specification before it had a name. It had to mirror folders across two isolated networks, in both directions, within minutes. It had to pass government firewalls without asking for new ports or protocols. And it had to be a repeatable per-county install, not a bespoke build for every client. ACT selected Files.com to be that transfer layer.

One Files.com Agent Inside Each County Network, Outbound on Port 443

Files.com became the connective layer between networks that stay exactly as isolated as they were. ACT installed one Files.com Agent inside each converted county network, paired with an Agent at the ACT regional office. Each Agent makes only an outbound HTTPS connection to Files.com, so counties do not have to expose an inbound port.

“I don't have to worry about additional ports or protocols.”

Between each pair of Agents, Files.com runs bi-directional directory syncs on short intervals. A set of named folders on each local server, holding photos, deeds, plats, and surveys, is mirrored to its counterpart, so a file entered on either side appears on the other. Files.com carries the traffic as pass-through transit; the data keeps living on the servers inside each network.

The rollout was staged on purpose. ACT tested the pattern on a handful of counties first, then expanded, creating the bulk of its sync jobs within about two months. The rollout continues county by county. More than 30 Agents now run in production across the deployment, carrying more than 250 sync jobs.

Files in About Five Minutes, No Open FTP Ports

At converted counties, ACT replaced part of a 15-year FTP operation, and the workarounds built up around it, with one repeatable per-county pattern.

• A file dropped into a folder at one site appears at the counterpart site in about 5 minutes, well inside the 5-to-15-minute requirement. Appraisers work from current data instead of waiting on it.
• Converted counties no longer carry an open FTP port on a government network. The aging FTP servers come out, and GoodSync and the remote-tool file transfers go with them.
• Parcel imagery stays current through the Board of Equalization cycle, so when a county pulls a parcel for a taxpayer appeal, the current photos are attached.
• Bringing another county onto the pattern is an Agent install and a set of sync jobs, not another FTP server to build, secure, and patch.

For the people doing the work, nothing changed, which was the point:

“They know if they drop files in those folders, they can then go remote into that client in about 5 minutes, and that file will be there.”

A Mechanics Swap Under a 15-Year Operation

ACT describes the project as a mechanics swap. The operation is the same one it has run for 15 years, and the people in it work the way they always have. What changed is what carries the files.

Networks that are isolated on purpose never needed to be bridged to stay in sync. They needed a Files.com Agent inside each one.