Scaling MFT: Why It Matters and How to Do It Correctly

As organizations expand and contract, so does the complexity of their data transfer needs. Robust Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions helps smooth out the rollercoaster organizations may be on today (at least when it comes to getting critical, sensitive data where it needs to be).  

Incorporating MFT that is scalable, automated, and secure isn’t optional. It’s essential for enterprises managing growing data volumes, increasing compliance requirements, and hybrid infrastructures that may span on-premises and cloud environments.

Why Scale MFT?

The ability to handle large volumes of data exchanges is just one aspect of scalability. MFT that is scalable can help organizations in multiple ways, including:

Ensuring business continuity

Scalable MFT platforms use high availability (HA), load balancing, and clustering to ensure uptime and reliability, even during high-volume periods or unexpected disruptions.

• High availability provides failover between nodes, keeping file transfers running if one system goes down.
• Load balancing distributes workloads across multiple servers to prevent bottlenecks.
• Clustering allows you to add servers to handle more transactions as your organization grows. This can be used for seasonal spikes, global expansion, or partner onboarding.

These capabilities each help minimize downtime and maintain business continuity, even during planned maintenance or heavy data movement.

Meeting Compliance Across Industries

Handling more data or exchanging data across more locations may also mean ensuring compliance requirements are upheld while doing so. A scalable MFT solution helps ensure your auditing controls expand in tandem with your data operations.

For example:

When new sites or regions come online, scalable MFT ensures encryption standards (FIPS 140-2, 140-3, AES-256) and audit logs remain consistent enterprise-wide.

In addition, role-based access and centralized reporting make it easier to prove compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, and other frameworks.

And automated workflows reduce human error, which unfortunately can be a key source of compliance risk. Multi-step, automated workflows can instead enable repeatable, policy-driven file transfers, take the burden off employees, and let them focus on higher-level tasks.

Accelerating Performance in Adverse Network Conditions

A scalable MFT platform should also be able to support high-speed file transfer protocols and acceleration technologies to optimize performance across geographies and overcome bandwidth limitations.

For instance, GoAnywhere integrates with  FileCatalyst Service to achieve speeds up to 10 times faster than traditional protocols, even on high-latency networks. This ensures that global teams, remote branches, and cloud applications can exchange files reliably, no matter the conditions.

Centralizing Control Across Hybrid Environments

Maintaining centralized visibility and governance over file transfers becomes critical, especially as more organizations turn to hybrid models for their file transfers.

A scalable MFT platform provides:

• A single pane of glass for managing users, permissions, and transfers across on-premises and cloud deployments.
• Consistent application of security policies across different infrastructures.
• Unified audit logs for all transfer activity, simplifying compliance reporting.
  This centralization helps IT teams scale securely without sacrificing visibility or control.

MFT Features that Support and Ease Scaling

If your organization is on an upward trajectory and you anticipate additional branches or use cases for your file transfer processes, comprehensive, robust MFT solutions should have most or all of these features.

1. Flexible Deployment Options

For ultimate flexibility, multi-deployment options and cross-platform compatibility should be available:

• On-premises
• In the cloud
• As MFTaaS, as a hosted solution
• In hybrid setups

By offering flexibility, GoAnywhere helps organizations scale based on preferred or existing infrastructure to help fuel and support business growth. Whether you’re modernizing legacy systems, migrating to the cloud, or balancing both, flexibility ensures your MFT supports your business model, not the other way around.

2. Enterprise-Level Features

• Secure connections with trading partners
• Automatic encryption for data in transit and at rest
• Auditing and reporting to help meet compliance requirements
• Real-time monitoring and notifications on file delivery status
• Integration with proactive security (Fortra’s Threat Brain), which continually identifies and blocks bad IPs before they enter your MFT environment

These enterprise-grade capabilities ensure that as your file transfer needs grow, your security, visibility, and governance grow right alongside them.

3. File Acceleration

As noted above, scaling up also often requires the ability to send large files fast, from anywhere in the world, even under poor network conditions. GoAnywhere’s integration with FileCatalyst is a substantial advantage for those organizations needing to move large datasets such as medical imagery, design files or financial or to operate across geographies.