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White Paper: An Alternative Approach to FTP

Managed File Transfer – An Alternative Approach to FTP to Meet Today's Global Requirements and Industry Standards

Best in class companies worldwide link more processes, exchange more data and share more applications internally with colleagues and externally with global suppliers, partners and clients. They do this more than ever before as they strive to meet their business goals whilst mitigating risk and maintaining a focus on core strengths. They do this by joint ventures, low cost country manufacturing and globally distributed supply chain activity for example.

The challenges of moving files, especially CAD/CAE, database, media, financial files and other business sensitive files, in such complex and expanding collaboration networks are growing as file sizes are on the increase. Organizations have to find a way to transport all types of files as methods such as FTP (File Transfer Protocol), email and portable storage devices are recognized as being insecure, manually intensive to use and uncontrollable.

Methods must therefore:

  • Provide security, monitoring, control and management of all data exchange activities
  • Meet today's data protection and regulatory compliance mandates for audit trail and archiving
  • Eliminate storage issues and delays due to the increase in demand for rapid data exchange and support of ad hoc collaboration with business partners, suppliers and customers
  • Ensure traceability of data exchange processes so that businesses can track all their enterprise data movements on the journey to the intended recipient and can be sure that the information has arrived
  • Reduce IT overhead through simple administration and efficient use of the existing IT infrastructure

Challenges with FTP-Based File Exchange

FTP software seemed to be a quick and cost-effective method for file exchange and it has become widely used even to transport even large volumes of sensitive and business critical data.

While companies continue to depend on FTP for their file-transfer needs, they have concerns about security risks and reliability involved with an aging technology transporting key business data in and out of a company that is no longer fit for purpose and was not originally intended for best practice enterprise global file exchange.

As a matter of fact, the use of unmanaged and insecure FTP sites may expose organizations to significant risks and many hidden costs resulting from the reality of its on-going maintenance cost of ownership. Research studies have found SFTP to be very platform dependant, not native to windows and not welcome on many systems as well as not solving the need for an easy to use file transfer mechanism appropriate for business use.

Inefficiencies and Weaknesses of FTP-Based File Exchange – Industry Survey

Compliance, Record Keeping and Audit Trail FTP servers alone do not have the necessary record keeping and audit trail capabilities to enable compliance to business IT security, data security, access security, regulatory and non-repudiation requirements.
Access Security The biggest problem with FTP is that the server can only handle usernames and passwords in plain text. So, if your FTP password is "sniffed" by a packet sniffer, then company data can be accessed and websites defaced.
Access Permission Many company IT security policies prevent the use of FTP TCP port 21. This means in B2B situations, not all users may be able to access a FTP server rendering this insecure method for data exchange useless.
Data Securiy Files are uploaded or downloaded from FTP servers without any encryption at all. As above, files can be sniffed i.e. stolen.
Error Handling If something goes wrong with an FTP server, there is no record of it and people just try to continue to use it.

If people forget their usernames or passwords, they have to be reset by the FTP server administrator.

If files error when uploading or downloading, then the process has to be restarted from the beginning. This can result in significant delays and time wasting for large file data exchange.
Setup Cost of Ownership FTP servers need to be setup on computer hardware in the DMZ of a company, usually by IT people. Then, usernames and passwords need to be distributed to users of the FTP server to access shared and/or dedicated folders. Each time a new user is required, the setup process is repeated. When users are no longer permitted to use the FTP server, their accounts need to be disabled (e.g. employee leaves the FTP server owner company or partner company). This cost of ownership is high when FTP sites are used in B2B situations.
On-going Maintenance FTP servers are usually setup for user access to one or many folders where files can be either or both uploaded/downloaded. The FTP server does not remove files from these folders automatically when they have been consumed by the intended users. This means that the administrator has to manually work out or setup unintelligent data removal scripts to ensure that the FTP server does not get full of consumed and out of date data.

Effectively, users and administrators do not know when a file has been downloaded or not. This limitation creates an on-going maintenance cost of ownership

Trubiquity Managed File Transfer (MFT) Solution to Overcome the Risk of FTP

More and more companies realize that the use of unmanaged FTP is a risk. Along with concerns about security, reliability, compliance and how to meet higher service-level agreements and new customer/partner on-boarding schedules affecting their bottom line, organizations move towards stronger methods of managed data exchange technology which gives them central visibility and control of their data transfers.

Trubiquity's MFT solutions and services are optimized to meet today's business data communication requirements by providing:

  • Security and compliance (e.g. IT security, IP protection)
  • Monitoring, management and control of all data exchange activities
  • Auditing (full audit trail)
  • Global provisioning, visibility and availability
  • Automated processes – seamless execution of business processes (such as procurement) or secure exchange of master data (such as product information) amongst organizations
  • End-to-end security for access, use and data
  • Reporting (e.g. notifications of successful data transfer)
  • Validation
  • Flexibility to adapt to new business requirements in the future
  • Availability as both licensed enterprise software SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and SaaS+ solutions that are especially designed for B2B use
  • Outsourced management of the additions of new customers/trading partners

Trubiquity's MFT solutions eliminate the inefficiencies and risks associated with unsecured FTP-based data transfer and enable companies to:

  • Improve productivity
  • "One place to go" simplicity
  • Protect intellectual property
  • Track and trace business data communication
  • Reduce administration
  • Deliver a higher level of service for all data transfers
  • Drive bottom-line revenue via reduced errors, reduced cost of operations and faster process execution
  • Drive top-line revenue via lowering barriers to automation, improving customer and external business partner satisfaction, and increased "stickiness" once automated processes and data exchanges are implemented.

Trubiquity's MFT solutions enable companies to automate, control and manage all data communication and help lowering the overhead while sharpening company's competitive edge.

Learn more about Trubiquity's Managed File Transfer Solutions that provide comprehensive benefits:

Hosted Solutions: Enterprise Solutions: Electronic Data Interchange (EDI):
TRUexchange
TRUexchange + OFTP		 TRUfusion Connect
TRUfusion Enterprise
TRUfusion Portal		 TRUeurex-c
TRUedx
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