FTP IS NOT A MESSAGING SOLUTION!

So you think your HIPAA Security puzzle is already solved?

A typical organization today uses FTP and possibly PGP or GnuPG as the solution to their messaging problems. SSL-based portals are also common, but they are expensive and usually do not provide a turnkey solution.

If you are using an FTP/PGP solution today then you know that it is anything but reliable. The server loses files, is prone to hack attempts and denial of service attacks, and can have its audit trail spoofed or rendered useless in a lot of cases. The problem is compouned by your end-users who aren't perfect FTP citizens and who really need a messaging solution rather than a file transfer solution. There are also a lot of logistical hurdles which cost your department time and energy to solve, such as:

• Where do I encrypt and decrypt the files?
• How do I do signature verification?
• How do I store the keys centrally and manage them easily?
• How do I get files through the DMZ?
• How do I handle archived storage and directories with tens of thousands of files?
  How do I find out what went wrong when the customer calls saying their file is lost or they are getting duplicates?
• How do I integrate the filesystem with my EDI gateway or translator products?

If your organization accepts files via an FTP server, you already know how unreliable it can be. Lost files, duplicate files, high bandwidth costs, customers using your server as a personal storage area, security holes in FTP products, all of these can keep an EDI team working long hours to keep the system flowing smoothly.

Do you really think it's working? And how many trading partners are submitting files to you? How many files are being lost or duplicated? Now just imagine what happens when you have a few thousand more? Or perhaps you need to change the folder structure on everyone for security or archival reasons. If you've accomplished all of the above and have your FTP environment running smoothly then you have learned all these things the hard way and have significant time invested in it. Or perhaps an outsourcing firm got a whole lot richer by setting it up for you.

FTP is NOT a messaging solution!

Save yourself the headache and experience the benefits of a real messaging solution. SolAce Secure Wire gives you full control over folders, and you can run SolAce Secure Wire in parallel with your existing FTP server and have both services using the same folder structures. Then migrate people over one by one, and eventually turn off the FTP. SolAce Secure Wire also provides mailbox-level EDI settings like Receiver ID, segment terminator, element separator, etc. to make your data processing tasks and business process integration easier than ever. You can do batch and real-time transaction processing within the same process space with SolAce Secure Wire!

SolAce Secure Wire does signed receipts, so you never have a problem with lost or duplicate files, as the sender has the signature from your system saying the file was accepted. SolAce Secure Wire does automatic encryption, compression, and digital signatures, and provides a web-based mailbox interface as well. Best of all, it can run over any network where FTP can run. For the security-minded you can setup a security proxy in your DMZ using any machine running Apache HTTPD. Just add 3 lines to a configuraton file to get all your transactions out of the DMZ and into the internal network where your crypto keys are (or should be). Let's see you do that with FTP!

Contact us today to see how easy it is to integrate SolAce Secure Wire in your environment. The server and client software are free, and because it is open source you can customize the system to match your needs.