March 24, 2010 at 2:13 am
· Filed under Managed File Transfer
By Todd Doerr
Even though managed file transfer (MFT) technology has been around for years, many in the industry are continually surprised at the number of organizations, both public and private, still using legacy FTP solutions for large or sensitive data transfers. Such technology has many shortfalls, including from the end user and IT perspectives. More importantly, it fails to help businesses meet today’s growing cyber security and compliance requirements.
In a recent article on ITBusinessEdge.com, Sam Morris of Attachmate did a good job of laying out the case for investing in MFT solutions. The primary reasons that he cited for adopting an advanced file transfer solution include support for increasing B2B interactions with employees, partners and customers worldwide; reliable, accurate, complete and timely transfer of information; support for internal and external security and compliance mandates; and ease of use. While these are all important and valid, there is one compelling characteristic of today’s leading MFT technology not mentioned in the article: risk reduction through automation.
Many organizations are looking for ways to reduce risk caused by human error. One of the most effective means for mitigating this risk is through automation within an organization’s file transfer eco-system. As most IT departments have learned, homegrown automation solutions, such as custom scripts written by various programmers, do not provide the reliability, audit trails, management, or even, scalability required in today’s tight regulatory and security environment. When evaluating MFT solutions, be sure to look for intelligent and straightforward automation capabilities that will help you migrate towards a more secure and efficient automation environment.
For more thoughts and perspective on the need for intuitive automation, please read my previous entry on the future of MFT.
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A couple of dumb questions:
Can your MFT automation deal with complex inner workings of Adobe software or Adobe compatible software such as K4, which has “Enhanced Workflow. Efficient, configurable task-based workflows with a new graphical workflow design editor.” Or work with the Integrated Production Suite (IPS), which, “using a SQL database, manages and tracks all aspects of multi-user ad and page production, enabling status-driven automation, gathering of detailed business intelligence, and distributed issue production — across departments or across the country.” Is IPS an attempt to work around legacy FTP for their particular industry, is it redundant to your solution or does your solution encompass this and more? I wonder how far you are taking automation in your solution and whether it goes beyond secure information exchange to include other processes, such as with databases both of SQL and others. Thanks. GLN
EFT Server’s data transfer and workflow capabilities are vertical, application, and data agnostic, and should be able to work in a complementary fashion to the tools you mentioned.
For future reference, please check out our knowledge base and online help for helpful information on EFT Server’s capabilities:
kb.globalscape.com
http://www.globalscape.com/support
Good! So it’s transparent to such tools. Sure. Makes all the sense in the world to do it that way. Nice!
John wrote @ June 22nd, 2010 at 5:57 am
Not only Many organizations are looking for ways to reduce risk caused by human error, but also doctors and people who each small mistake can cause the loss of human life. Great article 
Should we believe automation?yes,it’s fast and save a lot of time and cost.Like SMT machine,it’s really brought benefit to board assembly industry.
bobo wrote @ September 3rd, 2010 at 3:28 am
SMT machine will be changable in the future …
I wonder how far you are taking automation in your solution and whether it goes beyond secure information exchange to include other processes, such as with databases both of SQL and others. Thanks.
Pandora wrote @ December 9th, 2010 at 1:07 am
please check out our knowledge base and online help for helpful information on EFT Server’s capabilities:
