What is Managed File Transport (MFT)?
Moving data securely and reliably to support critical business processes has never been more important — and challenging.
Sensitive data must be protected in transit and at rest with the proper controls to meet business needs and comply with government and industry regulations.
Moving data reliably and securely at the right time is a critical success factor in many businesses. Business agility has become vital to business success.
MFT enables both security and full automation, which eliminates errors and reduces costs. Automation is one of the major reasons to embark on an MFT project.
Managed File Transfer is a secure, reliable technology for sharing critical business data. MFT software is designed to meet the compliance and performance requirements necessary to send and receive high-value, high-volume files such as money transfers, sensitive data containing personal information, or proprietary business files. Because you can manage all your critical data transfers across the enterprise from a single pane of glass, MFT gives you complete visibility and control into where data goes. MFT is more reliable, secure, and easier to manage than protocols like FTP or HTTP, making it the preferred solution for data transfer.
Managed File Transfer has proven to be the best solution when requirements include large volumes of daily file transfers, guaranteed delivery and regulatory or SLA compliance.
How does MFT work?
Managed File Transfer software simplifies data and file transfers by providing a centralized, self-service solution for managing, securing, and monitoring the exchange of large volumes of data. These exchanges can be made by both internal and external applications or users on an automatic or ad hoc basis.
Once an application or user initiates a data transfer, the MFT solution will encrypt the data to ensure it stays secure in motion and at rest. It may also compress the data to improve delivery speed. Once the data is prepared for delivery, it’s sent to the recipient using your chosen security protocols. The data transfer is completely managed and tracked through the MFT solution, making it simple to create audit trails that ensure regulatory compliance.
MFT software is useful for managing massive amounts of file transfers while ensuring data security. APIs make it simple to easily integrate file transfers into business applications for rapid innovation and delivery of new services. And because the entire MFT ecosystem can be centrally managed and controlled, you can easily monitor performance and correct issues before they impact your business or create missed SLAs.
MOVEit’s Solution Architecture
Email and Web Transfer
MOVEit Ad-Hoc makes secure file transfer easily accessible from Microsoft Outlook or a web browser to assure the compliant ad-hoc transfers of sensitive data.
Mobile Managed File Transfer
The free MOVEit Mobile app puts secure and managed file transfer control at your fingertips via your iOS or Android device.
Mulesoft iPaaS Integration
The MOVEit Mulesoft Connector supports the integration of managed file transfer capabilities with any application supported by Mulesoft’s iPaaS solution.
Automated Failover
Neverfail Failover Manager for MOVEit Transfer, MOVEit Automation, SQL Server and Windows file servers. Delivers zero downtime with failover to secondary and tertiary servers to maximize file transfer availability.
Secure End-User Collaboration
Secure Folder Sharing provides internal and external end users with an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop collaboration capability as an alternative to using email or content collaboration to share sensitive data.
Flexible Deployment
Deployment flexibility means you can meet your exact needs with options ranging from MFT-as-a-Service, to public cloud to on-premises or hybrid cloud solutions.
DMZ Proxy Gateway
MOVEit Gateway is a DMZ proxy server that keeps confidential/sensitive data, authentication, and access information behind the firewall.
Additional Capabilities
Multi-Tenancy
Our Multi-tenancy option option enables MOVEit Transfer to simultaneously serve multiple client organizations, or “tenants”, on a domain or username basis.
High Availability
MOVEit Transfer has a flexible architecture that can be deployed on one or more systems to address availability, performance or scalability requirements.
Desktop Clients
Progress has full range of desktop clients to meet your needs, including an easy-to-use desktop client for Windows and MacOS, WS_FTP, MOVEit EX and MOVEit Freely
API
The MOVEit API offers third-party programs access to a wide variety of MOVEit Cloud and MOVEit Transfer services and administrative capabilities.
Who needs MFT?
Managed File Transfer is a requirement for any business or organization that regularly sends or receives massive data volumes that require a high level of security. MFT provides a single, highly scalable solution to meet all the file transfer needs of your organization, allowing you to significantly reduce your operating costs, gain complete visibility into your data transfers, and improve your ability to integrate data transfers into your other business systems or service.
Business benefit
Securely Share Files Across the Enterprise and Globally
Reduce the risk of data loss and non-compliance with a fully-auditable and managed file transfer solution. Extend file transfer capabilities to all users to eliminate insecure use of email and quickly onboard partners and third-parties. Easily create automated file transfer tasks and workflows to accelerate your business and eliminate the risk of user error. Track and report on every single transfer.
Transfer Sensitive Information Securely
Encryption in-transit and at-rest and advanced security features keep sensitive information out of harm’s way.
Assure Regulatory Compliance
Easily implement security controls and establish an audit trail.
Let End Users Collaborate Securely
Easily ensure secure and compliant sharing of sensitive data for all users.
Accelerate Task and Workflow Creation
Enable your team with programming-free automation of multi-step, logic-based workflows.
Compliance Requirements
There is no single, holistic solution that can address all data protection compliance and security requirements for a given organization. There are many systems that companies put in place to secure data within the firewall. When sensitive information is contained within an organization, it is much easier for IT to control and manage.
What happens when sensitive data is sent externally – beyond the confines of the firewall? The sensitive data is now vulnerable and can manipulated, stolen or sold on the black market. Your data may end up in the hands of unintended recipients presenting the risk of data theft and regulatory violations.
This is where a secure and reliable Managed File Transfer (MFT) system can prove an invaluable investment for an organization that needs to share sensitive information with 3rd parties. A MFT solution can address many security and compliance protection requirements while giving IT the control, visibility and flexibility to file transfer activities. It enables IT management oversight of day-today business operations that involve the transfer of large amounts of data to other organizations, employees, partners and vendors.
Once sensitive data is outside the firewall, it is exposed to potential theft and misuse.
Compliance Requirements
| Security Requirement | File Transfer Control |
| 1. Compliance | Automation |
| 2. Communications Security | Control & Visibility |
| 3. Information Security Policies | Information Security |
| 4. Access Control | Authentication |
| 5. Cryptography | Cryptography |
| 6. Physical & Environmental Security | Secure Architecture |
| 7. Business Continuity Security | Failover |