Managed File Transfers

As Frends has been around for over 30 years our MFT capabilities are among the best in the market and are based on our previous independant product Cobalt, which enables all file transfer scenarios in both legacy and modern scenarios.

Managed File Transfer scenarios are implemented in Frends by utilizing the Cobalt Transfer task as a part of any standard integration process:

and then configuring the Cobalt Transfer task according to the file transfer use case in question:

Supported Protocols

Frends has out-of-the-box support for the following file transfer protocols:

FTP

• Username and Password authentication

FTPS

• Username and Password authentication

SFTP

• Username and Password authentication
• Username and Private Key authentication
• Username, Password and Private Key authentication
• Supported host key algorithms: RSA | DSS | Certificate | ED25519 | ECDsaNistP256 | ECDsaNistP384 | ECDsaNistP521

Windows and Linux based file systems

• OS User based authentication via Kerberos

File Transfer Features

Additionally the Cobalt Transfer task offers a multitude of useful features regarding to managed file transfers such as:

• Automatic file backups and backup cleanups
• Renaming of files before, during and after the transfer
• Various logical options on how to deal with existing or locked files

File Transfer Process

The file transfer process goes through the following steps to perform the file transfer:

Initialize Initializes the transfer and opens the source connection.

List Files Navigates to the correct directory and lists all the files that match the given filemask.

Transfer Files If there are files to transfer, they are then transferred individually. The following steps are applied for each file:

1. Rename or move the file to be transferred according to settings
2. Retrieve or transmit the file depending on the use case
3. Delete, rename or move the original transferred file
4. Apply additional steps such as backups etc.
5. Finished

Managed File Transfer Monitoring

When executing managed file transfers as part of integrations frends automatically keeps fine grained logs of all operations relating to the managed file transfer in question, which can be viewed from the integration process instance in question.

Example of the failed transfer log:

08:30:45Z: Connecting to speedtest.tele2.net:21 using Ftp. 
08:30:45Z: Assembly: Rebex.Ftp 2017 R3 for .NET 4.0-4.7 
08:30:45Z: Platform: Windows 6.2.9200 64-bit; CLR: 4.0.30319.42000 
08:30:45Z: Culture: en; Windows-1252 
08:30:45Z: Using proxy none. 
08:30:48Z: 220 (vsFTPd 3.0.3) 
08:30:48Z: USER anonymous 
08:30:48Z: 331 Please specify the password. 
08:30:48Z: PASS ********* 
08:30:53Z: 230 Login successful. 
08:30:53Z: FEAT 
08:30:53Z: 211-Features: 
08:30:53Z:  EPRT 
08:30:53Z:  EPSV 
08:30:53Z:  MDTM 
08:30:53Z:  PASV 
08:30:53Z:  REST STREAM 
08:30:53Z:  SIZE 
08:30:53Z:  TVFS 
08:30:53Z: 211 End 
08:30:53Z: CWD / 
08:30:53Z: 250 Directory successfully changed. 
08:30:53Z: TYPE A 
08:30:53Z: 200 Switching to ASCII mode. 
08:30:53Z: PASV 
08:30:53Z: 227 Entering Passive Mode (90,130,70,73,112,16). 
08:30:53Z: LIST 
08:30:53Z: 150 Here comes the directory listing. 
08:30:53Z: 226 Directory send OK. 
08:30:53Z: Connecting to speedtest.tele2.net:21 using Ftp. 
08:30:53Z: Assembly: Rebex.Ftp 2017 R3 for .NET 4.0-4.7 
08:30:53Z: Platform: Windows 6.2.9200 64-bit; CLR: 4.0.30319.42000 
08:30:53Z: Culture: en; Windows-1252 
08:30:53Z: Using proxy none. 
08:31:03Z: 220 (vsFTPd 3.0.3) 
08:31:03Z: USER anonymous 
08:31:03Z: 331 Please specify the password. 
08:31:03Z: PASS ********* 
08:31:15Z: 230 Login successful. 
08:31:15Z: FEAT 
08:31:15Z: 211-Features: 
08:31:15Z:  EPRT 
08:31:15Z:  EPSV 
08:31:15Z:  MDTM 
08:31:15Z:  PASV 
08:31:15Z:  REST STREAM 
08:31:15Z:  SIZE 
08:31:15Z:  TVFS 
08:31:15Z: 211 End 
08:31:15Z: CWD speedtest.tele2.net 
08:31:15Z: 550 Failed to change directory. 

Frends file transfer from 'Ftp://speedtest.tele2.net///2MB.zip' to 
'Ftp://speedtest.tele2.net/speedtest.tele2.net/20200520_file_01.zip'
failed with an error code: 550 Failed to change directory