Townsend Security Data Privacy Blog

Cross-Platform Standards and Secure File Transfer

Posted by Paul Ohmart on Apr 21, 2011 4:00:00 AM

cross platform encryptionThe modern enterprise runs on a variety of computing platforms. The concept of being "an IBM shop" has gone the way of the buggy whip. With cloud computing and virtual machine technology, you may not even know what your hardware base is. This has caused  those seeking to realize the benefits of standardization to shift their focus to the software.

Take, for example, the need for securely transferring files, both within the organization and between trading partners. In the UNIX-Linux-Windows world the de facto standard for secure file transfer is undoubtedly PGP. The technology is mature and it is implemented on every significant OS variant in common use. It is extensively documented and familiar to a very large number of programmers and administrators.

But while the IBM shop may have disappeared, IBM servers have not. The enterprise is often built around mainframes and mid-range servers. And these servers now need to inter-operate with not only desktop PCs, but mobile laptops and cell phones. This makes the ability to settle on a single secure file transfer standard for the entire company more important than ever.

Fortunately PGP has spread to both the mainframe and mid-range platforms; IBM series z and i. And not just in a quirky slapdash port to UNIX emulation environments, but as fully supported native z/OS applications integrated with RACF and controlled via JCL.

With PGP it is possible to have all the advantages of a uniform secure file transfer approach without sacrificing any of the security and scalability of enterprise level platforms.

If you would like to download a free 30-evaluation of PGP for the IBM i or IBM z, let us know.  We'd be happy to show you how easy it is to encrypt with PGP and transfer to your trading partner.

Topics: Secure Managed File Transfer, FTP Manager for IBM i, PGP