Learn More About Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software
What is Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software?
Data is a key asset for every business and it is critical to ensure that it moves efficiently and securely within the organization. MFT is an evolution of the popular file transfer protocol (FTP) technology. Organizations looking beyond basic ad hoc file transfers like enhanced security, administration, and governance capabilities utilize MFT solutions. Businesses leverage MFT solutions to automate, simplify, and streamline file transfers.
MFT solutions automate file transfers between systems or between companies in a reliable, secure, and auditable manner. Companies use MFT software primarily to allow such transfer of multiple files or data over an established network between both internal and external stakeholders. Common features of MFT software include high-throughput data transfer, the ability to resume and retry file transfers after a connection has been interrupted, and security features such as encryption and authentication. MFT applications may be deployed as both on-premises licensed software packages and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. MFT solutions are similar to FTP software where both types of tools facilitate the transfer of files and data. However, MFT software has stronger added security and management layers. While FTP can also offer an additional security layer which is known as file transfer protocol secure (FTPS), MFT offers a higher level of security than FTP by supporting secure protocols such as FTPS (FTP over SSL/TLS) and SFTP (FTP over SSH).
What Does MFT Stand For?
MFT stands for managed file transfer. However, managing file transfers is one of the many features that this software can offer. The word “managed” refers to how the solution can automate and transfer data across networks, systems, applications, trading partners, and cloud environments from a single, central point of administration.
It offers features that help businesses with exchanging large volumes of electronic business documents (e.g., invoices, purchase orders, ship schedules, load tender responses, purchase order changes, etc.) on a regular basis. An MFT server also makes transactions with multiple organizations seamless and easy through its process automation feature, ensuring reliability and security as well.
What Types of Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software Exist?
MFT solutions offer two main deployment types to cater to the needs of organizations with regard to budget, resource constraints (infrastructure, personnel), scalability, and geographic location requirements. They are cloud-based MFT and on-premises MFT.
Cloud-based MFT
Cloud-based MFT eliminates the cost of setting up in-house infrastructure. A cloud MFT allows the pay-as-you-go pricing option and it also allows usage to scale up or down as and when needed with business expansion.
On-premises MFT
On-premises MFT empowers organizations with total control over the implementation of their MFT solution. Users have to manage and install the software on their system. This type of deployment is best suited for closed IT environments that may not have access to the internet.
What are the Common Features of Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software?
The following are some core features within MFT software that can help users in secure, compliant, and efficient exchange or delivery of data across a network:
Security and encryption: MFT software supports multiple secure protocols such as FTPS (FTP over SSL/TLS), SFTP (FTP over SSH), AS2, secure copy protocol (SCP), accelerated file transfer protocol (AFTP), Odette file transfer protocol (OFTP) and hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTP/S). These protocols provide security and encryption capabilities that protect data at rest or in motion from snooping, leakage, and tampering. Advanced features like session breaks and protocol inspection maximize data protection.
Compliance: MFT solutions support compliance needs associated with data protection mandates such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), ISO-27001, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and more.
Audit trails: The software helps to track and audit user activity and file movement, which allows users to have a look into the entire file transfer process—who, when, and what volume is being transferred.
Monitor and alert: MFT solutions provide a browser-based interface to users to monitor file transfers in real time, get complete access and control over the data, and manage file transfers and workflow. This also triggers alerts in real time on potential security violations.
Smart routing: MFT offers the feature of routing files based on content, file and data transformation, and file management with versioning capabilities.
Automation: MFT software automates the file transfer processes. They reduce manual processes with automation and scheduling. They also detect and notify users of failed transfers, then automatically retry such transmissions.
File sharing: MFT solutions offer file sharing capabilities along with file transfer. File sharing allows end users to send and request files over the internet through a password.
End-to-end visibility: MFT acts as a centralized platform that generates a dashboard that provides insight into throughput, the number of users, where the data is flowing, and who opens messages.
Integration with IT systems and cloud solutions: The software supports integrations with preexisting security infrastructures such as antivirus, data loss prevention (DLP), access control systems, and cloud solutions.
Deployment options: MFT applications are available as both on-premises licensed software packages and SaaS solutions.
Device support: MFT tools provide support for multiple platforms, devices, applications, and other existing IT infrastructure.
Protocols: MFT supports multiple advanced protocols in addition to protocols such as FTPS, secure shell file transfer protocol (SSH FTP), and hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP).
Other Features of Managed File Transfer Software: Application Integration Capabilities, Extensibility Capabilities, Mobile Support Capabilities, Reporting and Analytics Capabilities
What are the Benefits of Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software?
MFT facilitates the secure, reliable, and automated exchange of electronic data between systems and people. Some of the key benefits of MFT solutions include:
Data security: MFT solutions ensure authentication, authorization, encryption, and completed transfers of files. They help organizations securely manage sensitive data and maintain data integrity and governance.
Regulatory compliance: MFT solutions ensure compliance with major industry and data regulatory mandates. It ensures a company meets its own as well as industry-specific data protection, privacy regulations, and compliance needs.
Fast, large, and secure file transfer solution: This type of software allows the exchange of large and rich media documents with acceleration protocols. They also guarantee delivery along with options like “retry” and “resume” to ensure the delivery success and recovery of failed transfers.
Scalability: MFT solutions let organizations keep business operations moving, irrespective of their file transfer workflows growing in size, complexity, and volume.
End-to-end visibility and management: MFT solutions include real-time monitoring and control, reporting and logging audit trails, and tracking failover and file deliveries in file transfer operations.
Automation: MFT software automates the file transmission process which allows timely and flexible data transfers or movement. It streamlines the workflows in file transfers.
Efficiency: Faster and more efficient transmission of data irrespective of the volume to be transferred or industry compliance standards to be followed with guaranteed delivery.
Who Uses Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software?
Companies that perform large file sharing on a daily basis take advantage of MFT solutions. In particular, industries like retail, healthcare, manufacturing, telecommunication, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), media and entertainment, and many more use MFT software. Typically any employee within an organization can use MFT software to transfer documents or files on an ad hoc or regular, scheduled basis.
Retail: MFT solutions allow retailers to transfer customer information securely along with maintaining and protecting the data integrity, maintaining compliance with PCI DSS.
Banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI): Data is very confidential and critical to banking and financial services. To comply with governmental and industry regulations and protect and prevent data loss, these industries use MFT solutions for secure file transfers. Insurance firms have moved towards MFT solutions to secure financial control reporting, claims to process, and other private data transfer processes.
Healthcare: Health care providers depend on file transfers that are scalable, secure, compliant with the HIPAA. MFT solutions make sure patient health care information is safely exchanged between providers on a daily basis. The MFT solutions for this domain should provide strong authentication methods, offer detailed auditing and reporting for worldwide data protection regulations (such as HIPAA in the U.S., the EU’s Directive of Data Protection), and others.
What are the Alternatives to Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software?
The primary function of MFT is to share files that are too large for email. Some of the other tools which provide the same functionalities are:
File transfer protocol (FTP) software: FTP transfers files between a computer and a server over the internet. It is built on a client-server model architecture, in which one computer acts as the server to store information, and the other as the client to send or request files from the server. Companies leverage these tools to transfer large files or large amounts of data between multiple stakeholders.
Cloud content collaboration software: Cloud content collaboration software serves as dedicated cloud storage and offers file sharing solutions for documents, images, videos, spreadsheets, and other files created and used by a business. They allow users to easily store, share, create, collaborate on, and find content within the system and are available from multiple types of devices.
Electronic data interchange (EDI) software: EDI software creates a data exchange between two or more computers. This software is typically used for the fast transfer of business documents within companies and between business partners, such as suppliers or customers.
Challenges with Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software
Software solutions can come with their own set of challenges.
On-premises MFT solutions: Traditional MFT solutions are on-premises software installations, enabling tight integration with internal systems. However, hybrid configurations are becoming increasingly common as organizations look to leverage the private cloud infrastructure for operational and cost efficiencies.
How to Buy Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software
Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software
If a company is just starting out and looking to purchase the first MFT software, or maybe an organization needs to update a legacy system--wherever a business is in its buying process, g2.com can help select the best analytics platform for the business.
The particular business pain points might be related to all of the file transfers that must be fast, secure, and reliable. If the company has a lot of data transfers on a day to day basis, the need is to look for a solution that can grow with the organization. Users should think about the pain points and jot them down; these should be used to help create a checklist of criteria. Additionally, the buyer must determine the number of employees who will need to use this software, as this drives the number of licenses they are likely to buy.
Taking a holistic overview of the business and identifying pain points can help the team springboard into creating a checklist of criteria. Identify the features they want in an MFT solution and have an idea of what the organization needs in terms of deployment, industry, and cybersecurity. Buyers must create a checklist of requirements that can be easily referred to when evaluating different MFT solutions.
Compare Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software Products
Create a long list
From meeting the business functionality needs to implementation, vendor evaluations are an essential part of the software buying process. For ease of comparison after all demos are complete, it helps to prepare a consistent list of questions regarding specific needs and concerns to ask each vendor.
Create a short list
From the long list of vendors, it is helpful to narrow down the list of vendors and come up with a shorter list of contenders, preferably no more than three to five. With this list in hand, businesses can produce a matrix to compare the features and pricing of the various solutions.
Conduct demos
To ensure the comparison is thorough, the user should demo each solution on the shortlist with the same use case and datasets. This will allow the business to evaluate like for like and see how each vendor stacks up against the competition.
Selection of Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software
Choose a selection team
Before getting started, it's crucial to create a winning team that will work together throughout the entire process, from identifying pain points to implementation. The software selection team should consist of members of the organization who have the right interest, skills, and time to participate in this process.
Negotiation
Many companies are willing to negotiate pricing that is listed on their website. It is imperative to open up a conversation regarding pricing and licensing. For example, the vendor may be willing to give a discount for multi-year contracts or for recommending the product to others.
Final decision
After this stage, and before going all in, it is recommended to roll out a test run or pilot program to test adoption with a small sample size of users. If the tool is well used and well received, the buyer can be confident that the selection was correct. If not, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.
What Does Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software Cost?
Secure MFT solutions come in all sizes and packages, from small, free tools to enterprise-sized solutions that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. As mentioned above, MFT solutions come as both on-premises and cloud solutions. Based on the deployment models the software is further available as a perpetual license or as annual or monthly subscriptions. MFT tools are priced as a perpetual license for on-premises software solutions, whereas for cloud-based MFT software, it is available on a subscription basis.
Beyond initial software licenses, most buyers purchase a support package and annual maintenance, so they can upgrade to the latest product version as soon as it’s available.
Buyers should also consider any optional investments to put into the product, such as professional services (e.g., migration and implementation assistance, software training) or add-on modules that expand the functionalities of the MFT solution.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Apart from the ability to secure and automate file transfer tasks, one of the most striking aspects of implementing an MFT solution is the positive ROI. ROI varies, however, as the amount a buyer can save depends on the vendor and product. When evaluating solutions, businesses must ensure the vendor has an ROI tool or resource that will calculate how much their organization stands to save after replacing legacy products, manual file transfers and scripts, and homegrown workflows.
Users must consider how much is spent and compare that to what is gained, both in terms of efficiency as well as revenue. Therefore, businesses can compare processes between pre- and post-deployment of the software to better understand how processes have been improved and how much time has been saved.
Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software Trends
With the increase in file sizes and the complexity of information sharing, the demand for adopting an easy, secure, efficient, and auditable file transfer system is rising. Information leakage, cost reduction, security risks associated with FTP, and the need for an end-to-end operational visibility and control file transfer system are the key factors boosting the demand for MFT solutions.
MFT solutions came into the market to overcome the challenges of using FTP solutions. As the name implies, MFT adds management features required as the need for file transfers grows from occasional and noncritical to high volume and mission critical. Additionally, MFT solutions also provide a rich set of security and compliance features that are not easy to be made available in FTP products. MFT software is a powerful business facilitator that reduces costs and risk, improves efficiency and agility. MFT is observed as a centralized platform that allows users to manage, secure, and control all file transfer activity.
Shift from on premises to cloud
With the cloud growing in popularity, MFT vendors are working hard to make sure organizations have the flexibility they need to meet their business requirements. This includes the ability to work in multiple environments, from on premises to the cloud to somewhere in between (hybrid). Purchasing hardware, setting it up, maintaining it, and buying software licenses is an expensive expenditure for organizations. Paying for a monthly cloud MFT service may be easier to initiate and to scale, which is why many companies are moving towards adopting cloud MFT solutions.
