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The Evolution and Essentials of Managed File Transfer
By Bernard Debauche, VP & Joe Fisher, SVP, Product & Solutions Marketing, Axway
FTP. It was one of those rare things that most companies never knew they wanted until they had it. Besides email, no method over the last twenty years has been used more often by B2B companies to move files and information assets among customers, suppliers and any individuals outside the organization.
Twenty years ago, it wasn't just an efficient means of getting information from one place to another, it was the only means, as email was still years away from the mainstream. Things changed, of course, and when email finally went mainstream, FTP became the second most popular way to move files in and out of the enterprise.
But in the years since email's adoption, something unexpected happened. Organizations realized that the information assets they move over these different channels is often incredibly sensitive. Payloads contain private healthcare information, private financial information, private medical images of patient diagnoses, and more. Suffice it to say, that's the kind of information that needs to be protected from unintentional exposure.
FTP, with its inherently one-dimensional approach to delivery, was never designed to address a nuanced issue like this.
The evolutionary transition to today's world, a world of unplanned, unstructured communications that includes a human element, demanded more than a one-dimensional approach. That demand was answered by managed file transfer (MFT), a much more sophisticated form of file exchange.
MFT solutions proved to be capable of tasks that FTP solutions were not, including providing end-to-end monitoring and traceability of file transfers, and supporting automation, file broadcasting, collection and more.
With MFT, prudent organizations started to understand that well-intentioned staff, unaware of corporate policy and data privacy, posed the greatest threat to an organization's well-being...
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Nevertheless, despite this significant advance, one last element remained that wasn't fully taken into account by MFT.
The human element.
MFT threw into stark relief the chilling reality that once you introduce the human element, systems that were once automated, controlled and secured change in three important ways: they are no longer automated, they are no longer controlled and they are no longer secured. With MFT, prudent organizations started to understand that well-intentioned staff, unaware of corporate policy and data privacy, posed the greatest threat to an organization's well-being, that governance of the human interaction process is critical when information flows in and out of the organization.
But with evolution comes new challenges. MFT has evolved to a point where we need to start governing these new types of file transfer processes, to start leveraging email, and to leverage other protocols beyond FTP and Secure Shell (SSH). And we need to make sure those new types of file transfer processes are governed as well. That level of governance includes access control to the information which you may be sharing outside your organization.
The message these challenges put forth is clear: The journey we set out to take is no longer the one we're on.
Today's processes are much more complex, much more diverse than we as 21st century technology users ever agreed to. We want to communicate with a network of people far broader than that which was imagined at the dawn of FTP or even email, and our governance initiatives must now align with that.
This is the evolution of MFT. This is the second generation of MFT.
Today, it's not just about the legacy VAN, EDI, and structured processes that might go from system to system. It's about answering the questions, "How do we provide MFT? How do we provide visibility, security and the ability to onboard a community? How do we provide a level of governance that accommodates an unprecedented level of human interaction?"
The answer is relatively short, but the challenge is by all means steep: "Implement a comprehensive platform that accommodates system-to-system interaction and today's human interaction pattern."
Which brings us to today, to Axway's File Transfer Direct.
File Transfer Direct rounds out and becomes the key ingredient, both the on-ramp and the off-ramp, of today's human interaction pattern. It creates a holistic, 360-degree MFT implementation that's governed, visible and secure; one that has the right on-ramps, no matter if it's your email client or a Sharepoint implementation. What is the off-ramp? Is it a Web browser? Do you want universal delivery into a ubiquitous tool like email?
With those questions we've embarked on a new leg of the journey, one that sees FTP and email—and even the first generation of MFT—fall away in the rearview mirror. File Transfer Direct puts its author in the unique position of being the only vendor that provides a broad spectrum of system- and human-oriented communications and a comprehensive MFT platform for both B2B and B2C. Like FTP, which debuted decades before it, File Transfer Direct is destined, too, to be one of those rare things that most companies never knew they wanted until they had it.
You can learn more about the benefits of MFT compared to FTP here: Axway Positioned as Leader in Gartner 2009 Magic Quadrant for Managed File Transfer
| | Bernard Debauche is VP of Product & Solutions Marketing at Axway.
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| | Joe Fisher is SVP of Product & Solutions Marketing at Axway.
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