Using Dropbox? Get Ready for Spring Cleaning!

Featured article by Paul Castiglione, Ipswitch

April is finally here and that means IT teams, like everyone else, will be busy with their spring cleaning projects. While spring cleaning your house is a pretty straightforward endeavor, spring cleaning your files can be a lot more complicated.

IT teams can’t look at their files like they were a box of old clothes; they can’t toss them out if they haven’t been used in a year or more. Regulatory compliance mandates frown on the “toss or keep” approach. When it comes to sensitive data, there are a number of standards and guidelines in place that require IT to ensure that proper procedures were followed for the movement and transfers of this information. The last thing they want to do is leave themselves open for potential penalties during a compliance audit.

Despite best efforts, clutter can accumulate quickly and the longer you put off organizing and sorting through the data, the longer it takes on the backend. This holds true for both physical and digital files. IT teams have limited resources and way too much to do, and the last thing they want to do is clean files out of an EFSS (Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing) system like Dropbox. But what are the alternatives?

There are a number of methods that IT can implement on the front end to ensure that they aren’t facing a proverbial landslide of files to deal with on the back. One of those options is the use of a managed file transfer (MFT) system. Unlike EFSS products like Dropbox that serve as a repository for files where they sit stagnant, MFT systems move files from one location to another and automate removal after use. This avoids creating an unintended database of files that needs to be sorted through and maintained. IT teams also benefit from having complete reporting capabilities for every file that traverses the system should they need to provide proof in the case of an audit.

Rather than worrying about the status of company files, where they are, where they’ve been and how they got there, IT professionals using managed file transfer systems can focus more time on their to-do lists. Many organizations often reference critical projects that are delayed or are resource constrained based upon the amount of time and budget that is allocated to file transfer. The five projects most often cited are:

1. Installing critical updates and patches – As most in the IT industry know, more than 60 percent of all breaches can be directly attributed to the failure of an entity to properly update software and patch against known vulnerabilities.

2. Certifying that compliance standards are being met – Compliance audits continue to be the bane of existence for IT personnel. They are costly, time consuming and resource intensive blocking the ability of IT to handle other critical projects.

3. Automating business workflows – Implementing technology that creates efficiencies of scale in the organization can often be the difference between hitting the margin or not. The inability for IT to implement and maintain these systems can have broad effects for the entire company.

4. Meeting SLAs – If you are in a service related industry, you understand the importance of service level agreements. Failure to do so can result in breach of contract and put the business relationship in jeopardy.

5. Ensuring business continuity – There is no bigger concern for an IT department than ensuring that systems and technology continue to run without interruption. Going dark, even for a brief time, in an IT environment is simply unacceptable.

A managed file transfer system is not a magical cure-all, but it does allow you to focus on more important technical issues rather than spending valuable resources retracing the steps of a lost file. Due to the large fines that now accompany instances of non-compliance, IT and the business can’t afford to take chances. By approaching the issue of file transfer through manual methods, it causes organizations to choose between risk and other critical projects. MFT systems remove this burden and allow IT to focus on the core objectives of the business.

Paul Castiglione, Ipswitch

Paul Castiglione is a technical marketer and product evangelist with years of experience working with IT professionals implementing software and SaaS integration middleware: web app servers/PaaS, SOA/ESBs, and MFT/MFTaaS. He’s worked for a few start-ups (most were subsequently acquired by IBM), open source, and IBM WebSphere.