IBM’s Unveils Uber MFT Suite to End All MFT Suites
March 18, 2014 Alex Woodie
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IBM last week unveiled a new collection of managed file transfer (MFT) software products that it says addresses the changing ways that organizations are accessing and moving data inside and outside the enterprise. The way that organizations are moving data with MFT is changing, IBM says. Instead of focusing on MFT technology and system-to-system transfers, the emphasis is now on the business use cases and ensuring operational visibility and adherence to governance. Enter IBM Connect:Direct Advanced 1.0, a new superset of MFT products designed to address the changing MFT landscape. The offering combines all of IBM’s strategic system-centric MFT products into a single product that can handle the majority of common file transfer tasks inside and outside the enterprise. Three MFT products are included in Connect:Direct Advanced 1.0, including: IBM Sterling Connect:Direct; IBM WebSphere MQ Managed File Transfer Service; and Sterling Control Center Monitoring. Two of these products run on IBM i, including Sterling Connect:Direct and WebSphere MQ File Transfer Edition for Multiplatforms (a related product referenced in IBM’s announcement letter for Connect:Direct Advanced 1.0). Sterling Control Center runs only on Windows and Unix. Having these three offerings in a single product will help organizations deal with the three most common file transfer use cases. These include: System-centric transfers–the automated system-to-system transfers that integrate systems. They account for 41 percent of the total volume of transfers in an organization, according to IBM; Community-centric transfers–the B2B transfers with outside suppliers, partners, and clients that require some type of protocol mediation and account for 30 percent of file transfer volume; Person-centric transfers–the file transfers between people that are too large to be handled as attachments to email. They are the fastest growing segment of MFT and account for 29 percent of transfer volume, IBM says. Of course, not every type of file transfer can be handled by these three products, which is why IBM makes Sterling File Gateway, Sterling File Transfer Service, Extreme File Transfer, and Enterprise File Sync products. For more information on Connect:Direct Advanced 1.0, see United States Software Announcement 214-159.
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