Adoption of MFT Cloud Services is Growing
It’s no secret that more and more companies are turning to the cloud to benefit from all that it has to offer. Subscribing to a cloud service can offer conveniences over deploying software on-premises, including faster deployment, budgeting flexibility, built-in elasticity, near-perfect uptime and it can be significantly less taxing on IT resources.
Managed File Transfer (MFT) is certainly not being left behind in this cloud revolution. According to Gartner, adoption of MFT Cloud Services is growing rapidly and now accounts for approximately 10% of the overall MFT market. While both on-premises and cloud markets will continue to grow about 20% annually, cloud services will become a bigger piece of the MFT pie.
Here’s a nifty graph from the Ponemon Institute’s recently published “The Security of Cloud Infrastructure” report summarizing key cloud drivers from the perspective of both IT/Security and Compliance respondents. Interesting to see that many people believe that cloud services will provide improved security and compliance efforts over doing it themselves on-premises with their resource.
So, how do you feel about cloud security? Are you comfortable with your organization’s data being moved into the cloud?? What cloud security measures would make you feel better???
Looking back at 2011, we saw more and more employees using consumer-grade (and often personally owned) file sharing technologies such as USB drives, smartphones, personal email accounts, and file sharing websites to move sensitive company information. We’ve learned that employees will “do what they need to do” to be productive and get their job done… And if IT doesn’t provide them with the right tools, they will find their own.
2011 was also a record-breaking year for data breaches. Coincidence? Perhaps. But there is no denying the fact that the increased use of non-sanctioned technology in the workplace has created a security loophole in many organizations. It will become increasingly important for organizations to mitigate this risk to avoid a failed security or compliance audit or worse, a data breach.
Ipswitch can help your organization meet the security, usability and visibility requirements for file sharing. For example, our Ad hoc Transfer module for MOVEit DMZ enables organization to enforce consistent policies and processes around person‐to‐person file transfers ‐ email encryption, attachment offloading, secure messaging, eDiscovery, and more. It not only gives companies unparalleled governance, but it also allows end users to send information, with anyone, in a fast, easy, secure, visible, and well managed way.
We will be talking a lot more about the topic of people person-to-person file sharing in 2012, so stay tuned….
Let’s start to examine the impact of end-to-end visibility and ways it can be put to work for your organization. For starters, let’s dig into correlation.
Correlation involves identifying related actions and events as a file moves through a series of business processes (including what happens after a file is moved, renamed, or deleted), and using that information to make business decisions. Correlation can also associate file transfer metadata with downstream processes such as whether a product was shipped or an invoice was paid after an order was received from a customer.
Ipswitch’s Frank Kenney shares some thoughts in the video below on why correlation is an especially important part of visibility and how it enables you to really understand not only file transfers, but also the applications, processes, purchase orders and other items in your infrastructure that tie back to customers, SLA’s and revenue..
Correlation enables users to easily view all the events related to the transfer and consumption of a single file or set of files, including subsequent applications and resulting business processes. For example, they can track a file through a complete workflow and throughout its entire lifecycle, even if it was shared with a customer or business partner – critical insight that can impact the quality and timeliness of work, service level agreements, not to mention revenue and profitability.
Information flows into, within and out of organizations faster and in greater volumes than ever before. Complicating matters is the growing number of vendor systems, applications and platforms that make up your company’s business infrastructure and touch even your most sensitive and mission-critical information.
If you don’t have visibility into the data and files that are flowing between systems, applications and people — both inside and beyond the company firewall — things can go haywire very quickly.
- Lost files, security breaches and compliance violations
- Broken SLAs and other processes that are dependent on files
- No file lifecycle tracking as data flows between applications, systems and people
- Damaged partner and customer relationships
- Lost opportunities
Relying on the reporting capabilities of each individual system has proven to be risky and inefficient. Chances are, you’re swimming in a sea of not-very-useful-or-actionable data and static reports that are already a week behind with what’s actually happening in your company this very instant.
In today’s blog video, Frank Kenney shares his thoughts why having one consolidated view is critical and why organizations are having such a hard time achieving visibility.
When it comes to your file transfers, many questions exist. Do you have the total visibility your business requires? How do your customers gain visibility into their file transfers?? Do you have all the information you need to meet your service level agreements (SLAs) as well as enabling transparency about integration and file transfers??? Let Ipswitch help you answer these questions and overcome your visibility challenges.
You’re going to be hearing more and more about “VISIBILITY” from Ipswitch, so I’d like to quickly start this blog post with our definition of visibility in the context of files and data flowing into, within and out of your company:
Visibility: “Unobstructed vision into all data interactions, including files, events, people, policies and processes”
Fast, easy access to critical file and data transfer information is a must-have – it’s critical to the success of your business. Whether it’s tracking and reporting on SLAs, analyzing file transfer metrics to identify bottlenecks and improve efficiency, or providing customers and partners with easy self-service access to the file transfer information they require – as well as countless other business objectives – unobstructed visibility is imperative.
Having one consolidated view into all of the systems and processes involved in your organizations file and data transfers will deliver tremendous business value and a competitive edge. Please do take a couple of minutes to watch Ipswitch’s Frank Kenney share his perspective on why visibility is important.
Ipswitch FT in the News
- Overcast but Clearing as the Cloud Comes to Security
- MOVEit Managed File Transfer from Ipswitch Drives Business Efficiency of Automotive Companies
- Renting a Film? Buying a House? Five Predictions for Managed File Transfer in a Cloud-Enabled World
- Cybersecurity threats target lack of SMB security
- 5 Misconceptions About File Transfer Security
