Designing a Solution for Secure FTP or Managed File Transfer
For many of our clients it is as simple as choosing a piece of MFT software and buying it from us, maybe with a quick chat to make sure it will do what they require. For others it is more complex, below are some of the questions that should be considered when looking for a solution:
General Requirements
At a contextual level what is the business requirement?
Are you looking to consolidate existing FTP Servers?
Are the files going between systems or individuals or both?
What is the frequency of files being transferred?
How much data per month is being moved?
What is the peak number of simultaneous file transfers likely to be?
Governance, Compliance and Security?
Regulations, which ones need to be met – PCI DSS, GCSX, FIPS, ISO2700x, SOX and so on?
Are you clear on how to become compliant?
Encryption, is this required for Data at Rest, or in transfer
Is authentication required via Active Directory or LDAP?
Do you require content aware monitoring and filtering, for example virus checking of files?
How long should files be available for download?
Is Non-Repudiation important?
Reporting, Auditing and Logs
Do you need comprehensive file tracking and reporting?
How do you track and manage Logs?
What are your data reporting requirements?
System Architecture
High Availability and DR
Hosted Service or In House system
Protocol Support, typical protocols are FTP, FTPS (FTP over SSL), SFTP (FTP over SSH) and HTTP/S, AS2?
Do you require File Manipulation, workflow automation or multiple scripts for FTP transfer?
Event Handling and Process Automation, do you need to capture a wide variety of file transfer events and provide a set of common built-in actions that can be executed in response to those events?
Integrating with the back end, for example your SAN or NAS or other file storage.
API Interface – are you linking systems together?
Integration with Outlook or Notes – the ability for end users to send files via their email client seamlessly.
Web Transfer – allows 3rd parties to transfer file via a standard web browser without the need for an FTP client
At a contextual level what is the business requirement?