Nov 19 2007   2:59PM GMT

Virtual Replacement for FTP

Posted by: Tony Bradley
Accellion, FTP

Do you remember FTP (File Transfer Protocol)? It used to be one of the more common methods of transferring files and data. However, as email became the communication method of choice, file attachments have more or less replaced FTP for transmitting data. Normal FTP also posed some technical and security concerns for many organizations.

Email has its down sides as well though. For one thing, it can take a LONG time to send an email with a 100Mb file attachment, and another LONG time to be the recipient trying to download

email with a 100Mb file attachment. Most email servers and email hosting companies have limits of 5Mb or so to prevent the email system from getting bogged down with such large files. Corporate email servers also usually cap the amount of hard drive space each user can consume, and large file attachments may quickly put a user over the limit and have their email functionality shut down entirely.

Accellion has a potential solution. Accellion’s virtual appliance helps facilitate file transfers. The client software runs on any VMWare-equipped x86 computer system. One cool feature of the Accellion appliance is the ability to automatically strip file attachments from emails and insert links to where the files are stored, allowing users to still receive acccess to the data without clogging up the mail server or their Inbox. You can learn more from this Computerworld.com article.