Managed File Transfers
In our information-based economy, organizations depend on the effective flow of information from both within and to the outside of the company. The qualification of effectiveness involves and includes success in key areas such as security, reliability, and timeliness of such processes.
File transfer tasks in themselves are typically repetitive, and the development of such processes often relies on similar logic. So, one might assume that user-written scripts would suffice, and they likely would for organizations completing only small or moderate volumes of transfers. But script maintenance comes with overhead that grows at least as fast as does the collection of scripts. And the research is consistent in that the volume of data, and thus volume of daily file transfers, is growing. Coupled with greater regulatory compliance requirements, visibility, control, and flexibility over data transfer activity become more important, and scripting becomes prohibitive.
Automate Managed File Transfers
One alternative involves the usage of a patchwork of legacy solutions, including technology-specific schedulers and custom or commercial file transfer management tools. But Workload Automation solutions that rely on scripting inevitably become independent islands of automation that contribute to the complexity only seen when either the organization is examined from the 10000-foot view or, of course, when something goes wrong. The initial low costs and seemingly low overhead of these scheduling and automation silos accumulate over time, adding layers of expense, complexity, and barriers to organizational innovation and growth.
Taking into consideration this status quo, analyst firm Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), has released a new paper on file transfer automation, concluding that enterprise-class Workload Automation (WLA) tools are the most logical place to monitor, manage and automate file transfer workflows.
Leading Workload Automation software creator, Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc. (ASCI), agrees with EMA’s assertation. Because a strong Workload Automation solution is designed with the specific intention of supporting the consistent operation of mission-critical business processes, including but not limited to file movements, Workload Automation solutions become the ideal central interface as well as the control, integration, visibility, and productivity hotbed. Certainly, any Workload Automation solution under consideration must be able to support key file transfer capabilities through a combination of features like drag-and-drop integrations, built-in reliability checks, and parallel transfer capabilities, among others.
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