Linoma Takes GoAnywhere MFT to the Public Cloud
June 7, 2017 Alex Woodie
A new release of Linoma Software’s GoAnywhere managed file transfer (MFT) software lets customers move files to and from cloud repositories in the same way they handle transfers with on-premise systems. The cloud support reflects the major on-going shifts to public cloud infrastructure, and also addresses a previous shortcoming in the GoAnywhere product.
Last month, Linoma announced that GoAnywhere version 5.5 now supports deployments on public cloud systems, including Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure. The new feature allows GoAnywhere customers to securely transmit files to and from remote cloud locations, while maintaining control and audit history from the central MFT server.
The HelpSystems subsidiary delivered cloud support through a new deployment option, dubbed MFT agents. With MFT agents, Linoma is giving customers the capability to manage MFT activities occurring on any supported platform from a Web browser connected to the central MFT server. Supported platforms include operating systems like IBM i, Windows, Linux, Unix, VMware, and MacOS, as well as cloud platforms like Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azure.
“By deploying agents, network professionals can manage all instances of the deployment from one centralized location, versus having to manage multiple locations individually,” the company says in a blog post last week. “This drastically reduces the amount of configuration time, and can present major cost benefits considering the reduction in administration time, management of software updates, and other tasks.”
Even with the new agent support, Linoma maintains centralized control of all MFT activities through the MFT server, including scheduling of file transfer activities and collection and reporting of audit data. The MFT agents are compatible with GoAnywhere’s workflow capabilities, including monitoring folders for new files; support for compression, database integration, and native command execution; and an email and text-based alerting system.
Linoma is also delivering a new agent template designed to speed the creation of MFT agents, which can be deployed remotely or within an organization’s firewall. The company says the rules-based approach makes it easy for IT administrators to deploy agents that handle complex, multi-step tasks – such as monitoring for new files, executing transfers, updating a database table, and then triggering a native command on the IBM i server – on a large scale.
Linoma’s new MFT agent approach supports remote and local deployments of GoAnywhere software.
The MFT agent deployment approach is new, and was not previously available with the product. Customers can choose to configure their GoAnywhere deployments using the new MFT agent approach, or by using the traditional on-premise MFT deployment, according to Linoma.
The new cloud support addresses a functionality gap that previously existed in the product. While Linoma’s MFT product scored very highly in a 2015 report from the Info-Tech Research Group that compared various MFT products conducted, the report highlighted the lack of cloud support as one of two “challenges” for GoAnywhere.
The other core challenge identified by Info-Tech was the lack of drag-and-drop workflow style interface, but the company addressed that concern with the launch of its new HTML5 interface in GoAnywhere 5.0 (a green-screen 5250 interface is also available). You can view a copy of the Info-Tech report on Linoma’s website.
With cloud support and a new MFT agent deployment, Linoma sees a variety of scenarios for using GoAnywhere.
“Whether it’s a franchise needing to synchronize files with its store locations, or a healthcare system needing to move PHI data between its data center and satellite clinics, the deployment of MFT agents will greatly simplify those processes,” GoAnywhere Chief Architect Bob Luebbe states in a press release. “The use cases for MFT agents are really endless.”
GoAnywhere supports a wide range of standard file-sharing protocols, including FTP, FTPS, SFTP, SCP, HTTP, HTTPS, AS2, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, MQ/JMS, and the GoFast file acceleration protocol. The software supports TLS/SSL and SSH encryption for data in motion and AES and PGP encryption for data in motion; supports native IBM i security authentication methods as well as LDAP, Active Directory, RSA SecurID, Kerberos, SAML, and two-factor authentication; and can be configured in a cluster for high availability or as a DMZ gateway for added security, among many other features.
For more information, see www.goanywhere.com.
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Cloud deployment is definitely gaining momentum.
I remember SRT being a first mover in this space by releasing Cornerstone MFT into the Amazon AWS Store back in 2014/15. Key to success in this space is the ability to build out an auto-cluster that scales up and offers dynamic high availability. I don’t see anything mentioned about that in the press release, so anyone considering a Public Cloud MFT solution would benefit from stripping away the marketing hype and make sure the solution can cluster, scale, and fail-over thus reaping the rewards of a Public Cloud deployment.