DataExpress – flexible in all that it does

There has been much discussion of late over what secure managed file transfer is all about. Taken by itself, file transfer is a task performed by many products on the market today including many that are free! With that in mind, why the added layer? Why an additional product? To distinguish the difference between file transfer and secure managed file transfer, lets revisit the comparison made to FedEx some time ago.

Cars and vans move packages and so too do railway cars and airplanes, all offering plenty of options to choose from. The selection always coming back to time and money choices – if sensitivity is the important criteria then you will want FedEx to provide you with oversight of your package’s movement. And so it is with DataExpress, ensuring that the (data) packages that you want moved arrive without any hassle or worry on your part!

Our customers have the choice between delivery vehicles – sometimes it may be a requirement to use a proprietary product like IBM Sterling Connect:Direct (NDM) whereas other times, the parties involved have a preference for the medley of FTP offerings.

More complex requirements, and again a feature of FedEx sometimes overlooked, is that it may be required to go out and pick up the package from a destination and move it from a van to an airplane and in so doing, add a bill of lading (or other documentation) to facilitate the hassle-free delivery while also creating an audit trail. In some cases the file transfer package may need to make changes to how the file is labelled and so forth – in other words, step in and rip the wrapping paper off, re-wrapping with new labels needed by the target recipient! So, in today’s heterogeneous world relying solely on a single file transfer product just doesn’t cut it at best and at worst, restricts you with a less than an optimal way to move important information.

All the above is by way of introduction to the topic that DataExpress is not just a file transfer product. DataExpress hasn’t built its business on simply supplying file transfer products but rather by stepping back and looking at the real evolving enterprise needs. Security, scheduling, encrypting, compressing, auditing, warehousing, alerting, etc. not only adds significant value across a mix of incoming and outgoing file transfers, but is being demanded by todays circumstances and none of which individual file transfer products adequately address. When juggling the movement of tens of thousands of files, oftentimes it became all too hard to stay on top of – just too much to be choreographed and synchronized with too much money at stake (in penalties) either when one file is missed or when it all goes horribly wrong!

Think of DataExpress as the conductor over an orchestra of market needs and products.

Furthermore, enterprises had already invested in numerous products and have integrated them into their operations. But even here, there are opportunities for enterprises to explore their options and move from one product to another, providing exponential benefits. “By the late 80’s NDM was the de facto standard in the SNA world” (courtesy of Wiki), and FTP had not yet started to gain momentum,” said DataExpress CEO Billy Whittington. “It would be daunting to attempt to compete with NDM so we chose the complementary angle.” That meant providing value other than simply moving the file. This has always been, and has remained, the very foundation of DataExpress – oversight with liberal helpings of visibility. “Because of NDM’s peer-to-peer requirement in the large corporate world, it introduced thousands of smaller users (their customers) to the product, evidenced by NDM’s rapid propagation across a multitude of operating systems, planting it everywhere where it remains today, deeply imbedded.”

NDM’s peer-to-peer architecture raises the question of cost, especially in today’s budget-conscious world – it is not an inexpensive option and getting smaller companies to buy in was always a tough proposition but in many cases, there simply was no alternative. Why shouldn’t users be able to receive or input files via FTP and then have them directed to where NDM could forward them as needed? Why shouldn’t there be less-expensive alternatives that can work in harmony with NDM? Ultimately, with NDM being just one option within the scope of what DataExpress supports positions NDM to being just another supported protocol. “Choosing to take the direction of treating NDM as another ‘protocol’ that we could encompass and control, it endorsed the investment NDM customers had made in it while offering options of moving into FTP and newer transfer technologies without introducing risk to a tried, tested and trusted solution.”

As Whittington then observed, “That approach has served us very well over the years where we sit side-by-side with NDM (now IBM Sterling Connect:Direct) in many of our large customers environments. DataExpress offers dozens of ways to appeal to a market desperate for rigid SLA control, automation, regulatory compliance and knowledge-retention in high attrition times or, in the NonStop world, purely retirements, and much more!” If you are still uncertain of the role DataExpress can play in your organization or if it is still unclear why you really do need to consider DataExpress, then give us a call or drop us an email and we will only be too happy to give you even more insight into the true value proposition of DataExpress.

sales@dataexpress.com | +1.972.899.3476
http://www.dataexpress.com