MFT: Built to scale
One of the major drivers for an organisation to adopt a Managed File Transfer (MFT) system over a homegrown or freeware file transfer solution, is to deliver increased throughput. MFT delivers enterprise grade file transfer and integration capacities which cheaper solutions just do not offer.
In 2022, always on availability and high throughput are a must for any integrated application. File transfers often underpin critical data movements, as such, ensuring SLAs are met and bottlenecks do not develop is a key piece of planning required for any MFT purchase or project.
Being able to deploy MFT systems in a distributed or clustered environment is a key piece of this jigsaw. Our vendors utilise different technology underneath to deliver their respective services, but with one common outcome: multiple software installations working in tandem to deliver a single service. After all, two is generally always better than one when it comes to computing!
A key question our architects are asked time and time again when working on designs with customers is: how many transfers will it manage? Basically, will the software handle my throughput? Naturally this is a pertinent train of thought; it needs to be up to the task at hand.
By using technologies such as clustering, auto-scaling and load balancing, luckily for you the answer is always yes.
But just how many files is a lot in the first place? Often there’s several variables to consider. Network I/O, and resource competition such as database or HDD input output. Of course, 1GB file transfer is different to 100 simultaneous 10Mb file transfers, and are there certain peak times to scale up for?
Bear in mind that the software doesn’t impart maximum thresholds by default, if you want to send a 10G file over a protocol, then unless you’ve configured that to be rejected, it’s going to be transferred.
Concurrent connections is the real indicator in these situations, and in laboratory tests this runs into the thousands per second, meaning with confidence we can say that MFT will cope with the majority of mass data movement.
HANDD have over a decade and a half worth of experience deploying MFT systems at scale and understand that the software capabilities are only half of the battle. Each new customer or project poses its own problems and by leveraging our expertise and support prior to purchase. HANDD engineers work alongside their customers to design a scalable and fit for purpose solution to address each customer requirement individually.
HANDD has a team of MFT specialists who can advise on the best way to unleash the full potential of a MFT solution and deliver more for your business. If you’d like to discuss how you can use MFT to save money, reduce complexity and minimise man hours, or if you need support finding the right MFT solution for you, call us on +44 (0) 845 643 4063 or request a call back here.
Further reading
HANDD SERVICE
Learn the benefits of HANDD Managed Services for MFT
BLOG
Clustering your MFT for greater reliability
USE CASE
Read how a major airport achieved scalability with a MFT solution