Dropbox

Dropbox is a company that offers platforms for users to store and share files as well as collaborate on projects. It was established in 2007 by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi. The company reported a revenue of $1.39 billion in 2018. The company has acquired 25 companies by January 2019, some which have been developed to become parts of Dropbox’s services, such as Orchestra Inc. (Mailbox) and Hackpad (Paper). As of 2019, Dropbox has operated as a public company. Dropbox is based in San Francisco, California, United States.

Dropbox’s main service is its file storage, sharing, and collaboration platform, which is available on mobile (iOS and Android) and desktop applications (Linux, macOS, and Windows), alongside a web-based service. Since its official release in 2008, new individual users will receive 2GB of storage for free. Dropbox also offers paid storage subscription for businesses, allowing multiple users to operate using a business account, equipped with enterprise-grade security and team-based collaboration tools. Since 2017, Dropbox also operates Paper, a collaborative tool for document editing by multiple users.

Overview of Dropbox's infrastructure for files

Each file uploaded to Dropbox are secured in blocks at a separate server before being transferred into the storage servers. All files are encrypted with a unique cipher during processing in the block servers. When content in files are modified, the changed information would be transmitted to the block server prior to being sent to storage. Files in Dropbox contain metadata – which are basic information such as date uploaded and modified as well file names – where they would be kept on a separate metadata server for database purposes. Any changes to files – deletion, modification, or otherwise – would be alerted to users with file access through the notification service. Dropbox maintains its own data storage servers called Magic Pocket where around 90% of users’ files are kept, although until 2016, the company exclusively used Amazon Web Services’ cloud storage.

Overview of Dropbox Paper's infrastructure

For its Paper service, Dropbox operates a separate system for the storage and retrieval of uploaded documents. The Paper Application Servers function as a location to process user requests in regards to the document, alongside alerting the users with access of any modification to the document. When documents are in static states, they are stored in the paper database.

Images that are either embedded or uploaded to the documents are managed separately from the document servers, where they are hosted in the Paper Image Servers. When document images need to be displayed, the image data from Paper Image Servers would be transmitted to the user through the encrypted Paper Image Proxy Service.

Dropbox provides multiple level of administrator privileges for organizations with more complex file authorization structures. In general, all Dropbox Business administrator accounts – be it Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, and Education – have control over sharing permissions; password set-up; web session period; remote wipe as well as user creation, suspension, and deletion. Dropbox also allows single sign-on (SSO) login methods through their API integrations. To increase security levels, the company provides a two-step verification for Dropbox logins that can be enabled by all Dropbox administrators and users.

Dropbox uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) exclusively for data transfer from between servers or between device to servers. When at rest, all data are stored in multiple data centers equipped with 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Dropbox Paper documents use the same security standard, though it is not stored in data centers; it is instead managed by third-party providers.

Before its IPO in 2019, Dropbox managed to raise a total funding of $1.7 billion through nine rounds, with its last round being a debt financing held on March 2017. This round managed to amass $600 million financed by six investors. In total, since its first seed round in 2007, 37 investors have contributed capital to Dropbox. Previous investors include JP Morgan Chase, RBC Capital, Deutsche Bank, Macquarie Group, and Goldman Sachs.