Your FTP solution needs to step in 21st century

While trying to attach 1000 invoices to an email, transfer video files using flash drive or manually synchronizing your local storage, Google Drive and Azure Blob is a fun yet time consuming activity to kill your working hours. It is however an ineffective and defect-prone approach if you need to manage this on scale in a small to large enterprise. 

It’s true that more and more enterprises rely on cloud and hybrid solutions which often require either an Integration Platform or an API solution to manage the data and file transfers. Sometimes all that’s required is a simple Managed File Transfer (MTF) server with affordable licensing costs and support.

What is MTF?

Managed File Transfer (MTF) server is a technology that safely and reliably transfers, synchronizes and protects data between two parties. According to Gartner Market Snapshot in 2021: “Organizations of all sizes continue to invest in MFT platforms that enable secure and private transportation of files — across size and volume levels — internally and externally.” This effort is being made to continuously increase data security and reduce costs, while streamlining the delivery process.

A good MTF solution should work independently of the platform or operating system while providing a full range of file transfers, automation and advanced functionality. If you can truly say that your MFT solution supports any file transport protocol and any platform, you are on the right track.     

What to look for in MFT?

First thing when considering any MFT platform the enterprise should assess  it’s current file transfer needs and future file transfer needs:

1. In-House file transfer between departments, branches and individuals
2. External file transfer with external servers, applications or platforms
3. Connectivity to cloud storages using API solutions

As a starting point you should consider your MFT solution to support AS2, FTP/S, SFTP, HTTP/S, WebDAV protocols as it can connect to any platform using REST API.

Apart from extensive connectivity, any MFT solution should follow the modern security rules (i.e. two-factor authentication, full visibility, audit trails and administration options ). At the same time it’s important not to forget the ease of implementation and security on the server side to comply with security protocols.

Third most important point is to have a simple automation of the transfer workflows. Automation should be a simple process with understandable triggers and configurable with simple tools (many MFT solutions offer their low-code/mapping solutions). Having advanced tools is usually not an issue, however you should keep in mind – the more complicated scripts and code, the more maintenance it will require. At the same time for more advanced situations (i.e. workflows that trigger additional actions, logging, meta data analysis, etc.) the MFT solution should be able to support such scripts (i.e. Python scripts).   

Last but not least – support availability for system health checks, resolving environment issues and implementation support. 

File Synchronization

Your MFT server should support file synchronization to secure your transfers and automate the workflows:

• Mirror – New and modified files from one node are copied to second node (Node A is the master node and all files are copied to Node B)
• Synchronize – Files from all nodes are copied to each other (Files from Node A are copied to Node B and files from Node B are copied to Node A)
• Backup – All files from master node are copied to the backup node (usually on schedule with mirror approach daily and full copy weekly)
• Contribute – Only new files from the master node are copied to the second node

File synchronization is crucial for many enterprises:

• Accounting firms that require all invoices to be backed-up daily
• Multimedia companies that require local images and video files to be synced with Google Drive for global contractors 
• Semantic search provider needing to synchronize crawling results (XML) files between many nodes and ensure mirroring in general catalog lists

Additional features to look for!

Depending on your needs, you may be interested in various features from Ad-Hoc file transfer via email (email attachments can be large, so instead of adding the file directly to message, file can be delivered through the MFT solution) to guaranteed delivery and advanced server rules.

Features like:

• Ad-Hoc file transfer
• AC2 file transfer
• Automated File transfer
• Compliance
• Data loss prevention
• DMZ streaming
• Managed and mobile file transfers
• Reverse proxy
• Secure file transfer
• SFTP

If you are interested in hearing more about MFT solutions, please contact us and we will be happy to speak with you about how the solution could fit your enterprise!