In today’s interconnected world, secure and reliable file transfers are vital to business processes. While enterprises have often turned to traditional solutions like File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers and Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) servers to handle their data transfers, these solutions are no longer capable of meeting current business needs on their own.
In the following sections, we’ll examine the reasons why you should seriously consider using an enterprise file transfer solution to fulfill those needs.
Enterprise data movement has grown in volume and complexity
As enterprise data continues to explode, the amount of data being moved across business units and organizations, as well as the manner in which it’s being moved, has consequently grown in volume and complexity. As a result, businesses are now finding it more challenging to support file sharing and file transfer activities.
Today, businesses have to meet the wide-ranging demands of end users, trading partners and other stakeholders when it comes to moving files. For instance, businesses have to manage and monitor not just user-initiated data transfer workflows, but also business-to-business (B2B) processes like electronic data interchange (EDI).
Enterprise file transfer workflows require comprehensive data security
Enterprise file transfer workflows often include personal data, financial information, intellectual property and other sensitive data. The presence of these types of information in your data transfers can expose your organization to a wide range of cyber threats that may cause business-impacting data breaches. To safeguard this data and minimize business risk, you need to institute a multi-layered approach to data transfer security.
A multi-layered approach is necessary because threat actors will be looking for vulnerabilities throughout your file transfer environment. For instance, if they can’t compromise your connections because you’re using an encrypted protocol, they’ll try to steal your data the moment it reaches its destination.
Recommended read: 10 Essential Attributes of Secure File Transfer Systems
Enterprise file transfer workflows are subject to regulatory compliance
Your file transfer workflows aren’t only contingent on your corporate cybersecurity policies. They’re also subject to regulatory compliance requirements. Data protection laws and regulations — e.g., the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States healthcare industry, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) — include provisions that impact data transfers. To avoid hefty fines and penalties, you must meet compliance requirements.
File transfer software is integral to business process automation
As a key facilitator of data exchanges, your file transfer software must be included in business process automation undertakings. A fast, efficient and automated file transfer solution can significantly boost your efforts to streamline business processes. In some cases, it will even allow you to respond to data movement requests in real time. However, it’s important that your file transfer solution readily supports automation. Otherwise, it will only be a liability to those undertakings.
File transfer services have to be available and reliable at all times
Growing adoption of data-driven strategies, such as digitalization, big data analytics, multimedia processes and others, is causing IT environments to generate large files and engage in more data exchanges. These conditions, in turn, have led to an increased frequency of large and high-volume file transfers, which can put a strain on your file transfer systems and potentially lead to unscheduled downtime.
In this highly competitive business landscape, you and your trading partners can’t afford unexpected delays. Your file transfer infrastructure must be resilient enough to withstand any sudden surge of traffic and workload. Additionally, in many business engagements, especially those where you’re part of a supply chain, you’re bound by service level agreements (SLAs) that require high degrees of uptime.
Security and compliance limitations of ordinary software solutions
Although file transfer servers that use encrypted file transfer protocols like SFTP provide decent data security, they may not meet the stringent security requirements of enterprise environments. For instance, secure file transfer protocols can only encrypt data-in-transit but not data-at-rest. They also don’t provide malware protection, data loss prevention (DLP), detailed audit trails and so on, right off the bat.
You’ll need these features if you intend to meet strict corporate security policies and regulatory requirements. To acquire these capabilities, you’ll have to integrate your file transfer software with third-party security tools that can address these deficiencies.
Automation limitations of ordinary software solutions
Traditional file transfer software like FTP servers and SFTP servers lack built-in automation functionality. If you wish to incorporate these systems into your automated workflows, you’ll have to write complex scripts that enable your file transfer solutions to respond to relevant events. Unless you already have someone on your IT team skilled in scripting or coding, you might have to hire additional talent to meet that need.
While script-based automation works, it’s prone to issues. Scripts are hard to manage and monitor. Moreover, they rely heavily on the knowledge and coding style of the person who created them. Thus, their long-term viability is contingent on that person. If the person who writes your scripts leaves, the next person who takes over may have to start all over again.
Recommended read: Using Windows FTP scripts to automate file transfers
Availability and reliability limitations of ordinary file transfer software
In a perfect world devoid of hardware failures, system overload, network issues, Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, power outages and other external factors, traditional file transfer software can support large files and even high-volume file transfers. But we don’t live in a perfect world and unexpected issues do exist.
To mitigate the risk of downtime caused by unexpected issues, some software applications are equipped with features like failover functionality or high availability (HA) clustering. These features enable those applications to switch to a backup system to reduce downtime. Sadly, most standalone file transfer software lack these capabilities.
Why a managed file transfer solution is your best option
When it comes to file transfer processes, Managed File Transfer (MFT) is arguably the de facto standard for enterprise-level file transfers. MFT software allows you to centralize file sharing and file transfer processes in a highly secure, reliable and easily automatable solution. With an MFT solution, every file transfer activity — whether it’s a user-initiated upload or download, an automated server-to-server data exchange or an ad-hoc file transfer — is managed and monitored through a central administrative interface.
MFT software provides comprehensive security features
Every MFT solution supports multiple secure file transfer protocols, such as FTPS and SFTP, which protect sensitive information during file transfers. These file transfer protocols use cryptographic protocols like Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) and Secure Shell (SSH) to encrypt data while in transit.
In addition, MFT solutions typically provide an extensive array of security features. At a minimum, these features include:
- Data-in-transit encryption: Protects data as it traverses the internet or any network.
- Data-at-rest encryption: Protects data while it’s at rest in your storage system.
- End-to-end encryption: Combines data-in-transit and data-at-rest encryption, thereby protecting data between and at file transfer endpoints.
- Authentication: Verifies the identity of a requesting party.
- Access control: Restrict access based on various conditions, properties, permissions and roles.
- Notification alerts: Alerts server administrators when certain predefined critical thresholds are breached.
- Data integrity checks: Ensures files haven’t been tampered with during transmission.
- Detailed logging: Provides an audit trail for future troubleshooting or digital forensic activities.
MFT software comes with built-in automation
Every MFT solution has built-in automation-enabling features that allow you to create automated file transfer workflows right from within its administrative console. In most cases, these solutions allow you to create those workflows through graphical user interfaces. Since these workflow creation processes don’t require advanced script or code-writing skills, you don’t need to hire additional talent to get the job done.
Moreover, unlike automation scripts that are scattered in different locations, these workflows are stored in one place. This makes your workflows easier to manage, troubleshoot and maintain.
Recommended read: FTP Automation Without Using Scripts
MFT solutions have built-in HA capabilities
Most MFT solutions are equipped with HA and failover capabilities that significantly reduce the risk of downtime and help you meet your SLAs. Some HA functionality uses clustering, which enables you to improve not only the resiliency of your file transfer infrastructure but also its scalability by allowing you to add more nodes to your file transfer cluster.
This cluster is typically deployed behind a load balancer that distributes inbound traffic to all participating nodes. This setup, known as an active-active HA cluster, reduces the workload on each individual node and increases your cluster’s ability to support a larger volume of traffic.
What are the best MFT solutions?
MFT has been around for over a decade now, so it’s a pretty mature industry consisting of a wide range of vendors. That said, not all MFT solutions are created equal. Some are substantially better than others. The best MFT solutions differentiate themselves by focusing on the following key qualities:
Provide robust security features that simplify regulatory compliance
As mentioned earlier, every MFT software is equipped with an array of security features. That’s not enough. For a secure MFT software to be truly effective as an enterprise solution, its security capabilities must simplify your regulatory compliance initiatives. If you still have to go through hoops and bring in several third-party tools to meet data protection regulatory requirements, you should look for a better alternative.
Here’s one example. All MFT solutions support encryption. However, not all types of encryption meet stringent security standards like Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2. FIPS 140-2 is the encryption standard used by the US military and government agencies, as well as by vendors, contractors, suppliers and other businesses that exchange data with those organizations.
The best MFT solutions let you tick off the majority, if not all, of the file transfer-related security controls required by a data privacy/data protection law or regulation right out of the box. The following comprehensive guides illustrate what we mean. You can check them out later.
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Guide to PCI DSS compliant file transfers
Guide to HIPAA compliant file tansfers
Offer low-code/no-code options for automation
Although virtually all MFT solutions come with built-in automation features, not all are user-friendly. The best solutions allow you to build automated workflows with minimal coding or no coding at all. This substantially simplified approach to automation can save your IT admins precious time and even allow them to delegate less critical workflows to junior IT staff.
By leveraging low-code/no-code functionality, you can automate more workflows than you ever did in the past and further boost your organization’s efficiency and productivity.
Offer deployment flexibility
Every organization’s IT infrastructure is built differently. Some enterprises have adopted a cloud-first strategy, while others have maintained a purely on-premises approach. Others, still, have taken the hybrid path, blending cloud-based solutions with on-premises ones. To meet the needs of these different approaches, the best MFT vendors offer deployment flexibility.
This means they allow you to deploy their solutions on-premises, in the cloud or a hybrid manner. Some MFT vendors even go a step further, offering cloud-based MFT solutions under a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Known as managed file transfer as a service (MFTaaS), this cloud-based service not only gives you additional deployment flexibility but also pricing flexibility with minimal upfront cost.
Integrate with a wide range of services and applications
Enterprise file transfer solutions rarely operate in isolation. You normally want to connect them with other apps or incorporate them into your automated business processes. To do that, you’ll have to integrate your file transfer software with other parts of your IT infrastructure, such as your Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) system, a Server Message Block (SMB) share or an Azure Data Lake folder, among others. Leading MFT vendors simplify these integrations by exposing their software through application programming interfaces (APIs) and a wide range of connectors.
Discover JSCAPE MFT, a file transfer solution built for the enterprise
JSCAPE MFT by Redwood is an MFT solution packed with robust security features and a low-code/no-code automation builder. It integrates with a wide range of services and applications through an API and an extensive selection of connectors. JSCAPE MFT comes in two varieties: JSCAPE MFT Server and JSCAPE MFTaaS.
JSCAPE MFT Server is a software application that runs on all major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS, IBM AIX and Solaris. You may install it on on-premises servers or on cloud-based virtual server instances, giving you maximum deployment flexibility. In addition, JSCAPE also offers an MFTaaS option, which allows you to adopt MFT technology with minimal upfront cost.
Learn how JSCAPE MFT helps you meet all your file transfer needs. Schedule a demo now.