Managing Partner at Teksphere Global Services Limited
Real User
Top 5
2023-10-20T15:42:15Z
Oct 20, 2023
It could improve its operations by incorporating real-time collaboration features like those offered by platforms such as Microsoft OneDrive and Office 365. These features include tracking changes, timestamps, and edit history when multiple users work on a file, going beyond basic downloading and uploading.
Application Development Senior Analyst at Accenture
Real User
Top 5
2022-11-23T16:10:15Z
Nov 23, 2022
The solution lags a bit when you have thousands of jobs, multiple users, and multiple developers accessing it at the same time. A typical login should only take five seconds but IT is experiencing loading delays. Connection profiles for configuration changes should immediately apply and refresh.
File Transfer Operations Analyst at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
2022-07-18T12:35:00Z
Jul 18, 2022
The solution’s centralized platform for the management of file transfer operations is good, although improvements could be made to it. Another area for improvement is the ARM (Auditing and Reporting Module) database, in terms of accuracy and the data being logged. And when it comes to functionality, there could be more descriptive instructions for various functions or actions. Finally, I would like to see more advanced features for the alerting.
Systems Administrator at a local government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
2021-12-14T18:24:00Z
Dec 14, 2021
There is only one thing that they need to figure out, as of my last conversation with their engineers. There are two ways to install Globalscape: as a standalone server or as a high-availability server, either Active-Active or Active-Standby. We are currently using standalone servers. That means if we want to upgrade the software, I shut down one of the two back-end servers, upgrade the software, make sure everything is correct, and then turn traffic back on to that one. I then proceed to upgrade the second server. With their high-availability solution, that is not a possibility. Both servers have to be shut down to perform the upgrade. We're a 24/7 shop. We don't have a window where we can have downtime. If we have to shut down both servers, that shuts down FTP, period, and we're down. We cannot be down, at all. Our solution is to have two primary active nodes and two nodes in standby. Our upgrade path is going to be going from two standalone to two high-availability servers, with two additional servers on the back end just sitting there doing nothing, so when the time comes that we have to upgrade, we will be able to shut down the main high-availability cluster, perform the upgrade, and then switch back. That's a pain. And that's the only thing that could be improved, because once we set up the high-availability version, it's going to be a little more tedious to do a software upgrade. As time goes on, it's very important to keep the software as up-to-date as possible because there are enhancements for security protocols that they've included. The lack of ability to upgrade would be a showstopper for us if we were running in the minimal high-availability mode. Having high availability is also important because it's cheaper for licenses and it's easier to manage those servers, versus two standalone servers. But that makes our upgrade path the only downside.
The folder monitoring services need improvement. Currently, with the folder monitoring services in Globalscape, if any changes are made to our firewalls, network, or something else that affects the directory services where the files are located, for some reason, the folder monitoring services get cut out, and the files are left there. They remain in the folder without being sent. I have over 50 file transmission processes that I would have to go to manually re-drop a file into the folder so that it processes the file transmission. There are times where even though I re-drop a file, it still doesn't work. In that case, I have to resynchronize the folder monitoring process, and it is a very big headache on my side that I have to deal with. It is not only related to Globalscape or their development team. It is on our side too. I just sent a support case where we found out yesterday that we had a file transmission that hasn't run in a whole year, and it was an important one. No one on the business side or the IT support side, as well as the vendor, had indicated that the file wasn't received or the data hadn't been updated. I found out that it was the folder monitoring service that was the problem when I initially had the problem last October, and this was the file that I just missed. So, I re-dropped the file in yesterday, and the monitor worked. It runs every week, so we sent a file to that folder, and it processed that out. There are a couple of things I'd like to do in the future. One would be that instead of getting emails sent to IT support when a file is successful, it should somehow trigger something if the folder monitoring service isn't working. There should be a way that we can get notified or I can get notified when a particular file hasn't been processed in a while. If a file is sitting there for more than 24 hours, they should have something to send me an indication that there is something wrong. The folder monitoring service should also be able to re-sync if there is an issue with our directory services. There was some kind of network change that caused the monitoring algorithms to not work for some reason. I like the ability to connect to vendors and do some testing, but at times, I have to use FileZilla or WinSCP to actually make sure that the files got there. I know they have another product called CuteFTP, but it needs to be integrated into the EFT application. If I send a test file out there and I want to know that it actually got there, I can look at the logs for sure, but if I want to physically see that the file actually got sent there, it would be neat to just click on something that takes me right to the file. I know they are trying to make some money, and they have another product to do that, but it would be neat if it was in the application. The reporting in Globalscape is just okay. It isn't great. Sometimes, I'd like to see more graphical reports. If I do a query on a particular file transmission over a course of six months, I basically get logs or records of data. If the data is put into a graphical or visual presentation to show what it looks like and how many times it ran, it would be nice. I'm looking at getting a dashboard application that sits on top of Globalscape so that we can visually see all transmissions in a centralized way. An admin person can go in once a day and see this graphical dashboard that just shows which files have been successfully transferred and which ones failed. Right now, we're just sending email notifications out to the support team, and they're barraged with hundreds of emails all the time. They may not see that there was an issue with one of the files. Only when they tell me, I go in and look over the report or the logs to find out the problem. I am not sure if HelpSystems has a product like this, but if such a product was integrated within EFT, it would be awesome.
Instead of using a fat client to access the administrator panel, where you have to install client software on any server that you need to use to access, I would like them to switch to a web-based model where you could connect from anywhere without having to maintain and install the software. It is not really a complaint, but the weakness of Globalscape is its 32-bit engine. I heard that they're working on a 64-bit engine in the near future, so that's all going to go away. It'll make the product awesome. Right now, it's fantastic. Globalscape is designed specifically for Windows. That is a handicap, but it is not important. If it ran Linux, we could use it in the public cloud offering. We do have a public cloud offering, but it needs to run on Linux. So, we can't bring Globalscape to our public cloud offering. GoAnywhere is the product that was chosen for the public cloud offering because it runs on Linux.
Learn what your peers think about Fortra's Globalscape Managed File Transfer. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
We want to have some capability for cloud-based. They seem to have purchased a different company recently, and they seem to have a cloud-based option. We also need some capability for faster transfers and large file transfers. If we want to transfer a terabyte file, it is not capable of doing that right now. They say it is possible, but we are not able to do so with our environment.
It could improve its operations by incorporating real-time collaboration features like those offered by platforms such as Microsoft OneDrive and Office 365. These features include tracking changes, timestamps, and edit history when multiple users work on a file, going beyond basic downloading and uploading.
The solution lags a bit when you have thousands of jobs, multiple users, and multiple developers accessing it at the same time. A typical login should only take five seconds but IT is experiencing loading delays. Connection profiles for configuration changes should immediately apply and refresh.
The solution’s centralized platform for the management of file transfer operations is good, although improvements could be made to it. Another area for improvement is the ARM (Auditing and Reporting Module) database, in terms of accuracy and the data being logged. And when it comes to functionality, there could be more descriptive instructions for various functions or actions. Finally, I would like to see more advanced features for the alerting.
There is only one thing that they need to figure out, as of my last conversation with their engineers. There are two ways to install Globalscape: as a standalone server or as a high-availability server, either Active-Active or Active-Standby. We are currently using standalone servers. That means if we want to upgrade the software, I shut down one of the two back-end servers, upgrade the software, make sure everything is correct, and then turn traffic back on to that one. I then proceed to upgrade the second server. With their high-availability solution, that is not a possibility. Both servers have to be shut down to perform the upgrade. We're a 24/7 shop. We don't have a window where we can have downtime. If we have to shut down both servers, that shuts down FTP, period, and we're down. We cannot be down, at all. Our solution is to have two primary active nodes and two nodes in standby. Our upgrade path is going to be going from two standalone to two high-availability servers, with two additional servers on the back end just sitting there doing nothing, so when the time comes that we have to upgrade, we will be able to shut down the main high-availability cluster, perform the upgrade, and then switch back. That's a pain. And that's the only thing that could be improved, because once we set up the high-availability version, it's going to be a little more tedious to do a software upgrade. As time goes on, it's very important to keep the software as up-to-date as possible because there are enhancements for security protocols that they've included. The lack of ability to upgrade would be a showstopper for us if we were running in the minimal high-availability mode. Having high availability is also important because it's cheaper for licenses and it's easier to manage those servers, versus two standalone servers. But that makes our upgrade path the only downside.
The folder monitoring services need improvement. Currently, with the folder monitoring services in Globalscape, if any changes are made to our firewalls, network, or something else that affects the directory services where the files are located, for some reason, the folder monitoring services get cut out, and the files are left there. They remain in the folder without being sent. I have over 50 file transmission processes that I would have to go to manually re-drop a file into the folder so that it processes the file transmission. There are times where even though I re-drop a file, it still doesn't work. In that case, I have to resynchronize the folder monitoring process, and it is a very big headache on my side that I have to deal with. It is not only related to Globalscape or their development team. It is on our side too. I just sent a support case where we found out yesterday that we had a file transmission that hasn't run in a whole year, and it was an important one. No one on the business side or the IT support side, as well as the vendor, had indicated that the file wasn't received or the data hadn't been updated. I found out that it was the folder monitoring service that was the problem when I initially had the problem last October, and this was the file that I just missed. So, I re-dropped the file in yesterday, and the monitor worked. It runs every week, so we sent a file to that folder, and it processed that out. There are a couple of things I'd like to do in the future. One would be that instead of getting emails sent to IT support when a file is successful, it should somehow trigger something if the folder monitoring service isn't working. There should be a way that we can get notified or I can get notified when a particular file hasn't been processed in a while. If a file is sitting there for more than 24 hours, they should have something to send me an indication that there is something wrong. The folder monitoring service should also be able to re-sync if there is an issue with our directory services. There was some kind of network change that caused the monitoring algorithms to not work for some reason. I like the ability to connect to vendors and do some testing, but at times, I have to use FileZilla or WinSCP to actually make sure that the files got there. I know they have another product called CuteFTP, but it needs to be integrated into the EFT application. If I send a test file out there and I want to know that it actually got there, I can look at the logs for sure, but if I want to physically see that the file actually got sent there, it would be neat to just click on something that takes me right to the file. I know they are trying to make some money, and they have another product to do that, but it would be neat if it was in the application. The reporting in Globalscape is just okay. It isn't great. Sometimes, I'd like to see more graphical reports. If I do a query on a particular file transmission over a course of six months, I basically get logs or records of data. If the data is put into a graphical or visual presentation to show what it looks like and how many times it ran, it would be nice. I'm looking at getting a dashboard application that sits on top of Globalscape so that we can visually see all transmissions in a centralized way. An admin person can go in once a day and see this graphical dashboard that just shows which files have been successfully transferred and which ones failed. Right now, we're just sending email notifications out to the support team, and they're barraged with hundreds of emails all the time. They may not see that there was an issue with one of the files. Only when they tell me, I go in and look over the report or the logs to find out the problem. I am not sure if HelpSystems has a product like this, but if such a product was integrated within EFT, it would be awesome.
Instead of using a fat client to access the administrator panel, where you have to install client software on any server that you need to use to access, I would like them to switch to a web-based model where you could connect from anywhere without having to maintain and install the software. It is not really a complaint, but the weakness of Globalscape is its 32-bit engine. I heard that they're working on a 64-bit engine in the near future, so that's all going to go away. It'll make the product awesome. Right now, it's fantastic. Globalscape is designed specifically for Windows. That is a handicap, but it is not important. If it ran Linux, we could use it in the public cloud offering. We do have a public cloud offering, but it needs to run on Linux. So, we can't bring Globalscape to our public cloud offering. GoAnywhere is the product that was chosen for the public cloud offering because it runs on Linux.
We want to have some capability for cloud-based. They seem to have purchased a different company recently, and they seem to have a cloud-based option. We also need some capability for faster transfers and large file transfers. If we want to transfer a terabyte file, it is not capable of doing that right now. They say it is possible, but we are not able to do so with our environment.