It has been 6 months since I last wrote about Accellion, the company with a secure file transfer appliance (FTA). Accellion’s Courier FTA is an appliance you hang on your network. When users have attachments to add to emails, they store the attachments on the appliance, similar to an FTP server. Recipients retrieve the attachments at their convenience. Unlike FTP, Courier FTA is secure, with file encryption and audit trails. Document management is also easy because there is version control and automatic cleanup.
I caught up with a few Accellion executives last week. They told me that product sales have doubled in the past year. I’m not surprised. The need to securely send around large quantities of large files, and to know that they got to the intended recipient (and only that recipient), is ever increasing. Companies have come to rely on contractors and business partners to do a lot of work, and that means pushing lots of files around, usually via email. But, email has its limitations when it comes to large attachments. The file transfer appliance gets around all those limitations.
I can think of lots of scenarios where an FTA is needed. For instance, doctors and hospitals need to share X-rays and other images, and HIPAA requires they be shared securely. Engineering firms needs to send drawings and blueprints to construction sites. Advertising agencies need to share campaigns with clients. Even the Girl Scouts of the USA (for which I am a volunteer) needs to share event photographs for publications and websites.
Has your company deployed an FTA yet? If so, how about sharing your results with us? Like, how has it impacted your email traffic and your file accountability? Have the users accepted the new process for sending attachments? What kinds of business processes have improved since deploying the FTA? Would you recommend an FTA to other companies? Send in your comments and share your company’s experiences.
