The discussion was fantastic. Michael Osterman of Osterman Research and David Boone of Ipswitch File Transfer really engaged us with some thought-provoking talking points, including tips on how to balance the need for end user simplicity with the control, security and visibility required by the organization.  A recording of the webinar is now available for on-demand viewing.

Watch the on-demand webinar recording

If you missed it, the final five key takeaways to consider when selecting a business-class file sharing solution for your organization include:

1. Make sure it can handle unlimited file sizes
2. Confirm that minimal training is required to deploy it
3. Ensure it is secure. This includes utilizing encryption both in motion and at rest, and that the message itself is encrypted too.
4. For successful user adoption, make sure it’s easy to use
5. Finally, make sure it’s easy to integrate into your existing environment

One of the things our panelists commented on after the event ended was the quality of the questions submitted by the live audience. If you get a chance to watch the archived, on-demand version of the webinar, we hope you will appreciate the honest and candid responses provided by Michael and David.

Consumer-grade solutions such as Dropbox, webmail and USB drives being rapidly adopted in the workplace.  The question is — are they right for you and your organization?

Next Wednesday, on April 25^th, you’re invited to join industry experts Michael Osterman and Ipswitch’s David Boone in a 29-minute rapid-fire discussion where we will address:

• Typical Tools – What are the products employees are bringing with them to work?
• What are the risks of relying on personal file sharing tools in the workplace?
• How can I balance the need of the individual with the requirements of the organization?
• Top 3 things to look for in an easy-to-use and governed business-class file sharing solution?

If you manage an IT environment where these tools are pervasively used by employees to send company information, then you’re encouraged to participate in what should be a very opinionated discussion.  Bring your questions.  Challenge the experts.  Learn how to regain control.  And enjoy the conversation.  Register now.

P.S. – if you are unable to attend the live event, please register anyways and we’ll email you a link to the archived recording for playback on-demand, as your schedule permits.

Talk of security concerns with FTP is certainly not new.  FTP was never designed to provide any type of encryption, making it possible for data to be compromised while in-transit.  A common answer for this is to use encrypted standards-based protocols such as SSL/FTPS and SSH/SFTP.

Luckily, modern managed file transfer solutions deliver not only the security you know your business requires, but also the visibility and control that IT needs to properly govern company information.

Ipswitch’s Greg Faubert offers his thoughts in the Dark Reading article:

“While FTP is a ubiquitous protocol, depending on it as a standard architecture for file exchange is a bad strategy…. The PCI standards look specifically at the security surrounding your FTP environment. It is a significant area of focus for auditors, and they will fail companies in their PCI audits for a lack of adequate controls.”

And yet, somehow, many organizations continue to rely on unencrypted FTP to transport mission-critical or sensitive information.  For those guilty, here are a few steps to help you get started in migrating away from antiquated FTP.  And don’t worry, it won’t be painful.

Quick background on the business need:  Rochester General Hospital needs to exchange patient records, insurance claims, and billing information from their electronic medical record (EMR) and accounting systems with many health providers and insurance companies.

Security and compliance are critically important:  Not only do the transfers need to be reliable to facilitate timely payments, but they also needed to be highly secure and auditable to protect patient privacy and ensure compliance with HIPAA and HITECH.

Ipswitch eliminated complexity and created efficiencies:

“We needed to consolidate on a standard way to transfer files to many different payer systems…. MOVEit consolidated a number of batch files and legacy tools into a single, secure and easy to use file transfer solution,” says Dylan Taft, Systems Engineer at RGH.

“In the event of an audit, MOVEit allows us to provide chain-of-custody and non-repudiation with just a few clicks.  Without MOVEit, we wouldn’t have this visibility.”

If we didn’t have MOVEit, we would have to hire one or two additional people just to review the log files every day – not to mention lost files, information arriving late, and frustrated doctors and payers.”

Do you have a great Ipswitch story of your own to tell?  Email us at mystories@ipswitch.com…. We can’t wait to hear all about it!

Many of the people I spoke with shared similar concerns of data breach risk, tighter compliance and auditing requirements, and their lack of visibility and control over the tools that people are using inside their organization to share files and data with other people.  IT leaders are feeling pressure (and rightfully so) to regain control over how people share files with other people.  It was also great hear so many people talking about migrating to the public and private clouds in order to take advantage of benefits such as quick provisioning and elasticity.

My favorite conversations at conferences are usually the ones I have with current customers…. And RSA was no exception.  Quite frankly, the key insights I learn from talking with customers help me do my job better.  Many thanks to the dozen or so Ipswitch customers that stopped by our booth and shared stories of how they have successfully consolidated and replaced the various homegrown file transfer tools and scripts, various vendor products, and manual processes they had been relying on with an Ipswitch MFT solution, resulting in improved efficiencies in their business processes as well as a simplified way to demonstrate compliance and consistently enforce security policies for all their file transfer and file sharing activities.

This will be my third year attending RSA.  Not only and I’m looking forward to talking about how Ipswitch’s portfolio of Managed File Transfer solutions can solve the problems you’re experiencing with your current file transfer and B2B environment….  But I’m also looking forward to learning about topics like security attacks, data breaches, mobile threats, cloud security, and compliance along with the other 15,000+ people attending the largest security conference in North America.

If you’re going to be at RSA this year, stop by our Ipswitch booth (#629) to learn how we can help you:

• Mitigate security risks and data breach exposure.  We’ll show you how to secure and control all files/data moving between systems and people — both internally and externally

• Reduce complexity by consolidating and replacing the various file transfer products, homegrown solutions, hard to maintain scripts, and tools people use to share files

• Increases productivity and efficiency by automating manual and labor-intensive workflows with a simple point-and-click interface – No scripting required

• Provide visibility and auditability into all data transfer and file sharing activities, including files, events, people, policies and processes

We hope to see you there.

In fact, according to the recent Ponemon cloud survey, over 30% of IT and compliance respondents claim that concerns about data security have kept their organization from adopting cloud services…. And approximately half place a high priority on security when evaluating cloud providers.

For many, the benefits and the desire to migrate to the cloud in organizations seem to outweigh the security concerns.

That being said, every company’s risk tolerance is different.  Some of the variables in play that impact risk tolerance certainly include the type of information being moved and stored in the cloud, the industry (and associated compliance requirements) and of not only the company but also its business partners, as well as the specific security measures provided (or not provided) by cloud providers they are considering.

Not all cloud services are created equal.  There are absolutely great differences in the measures different providers have taken to protect information they process and store in the cloud.  A few security considerations include authentication and authorization as well as protecting data not only while it’s in transit to the cloud, but also while it remains there.

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???

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….

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..

Click here to view the embedded video.