And to expand in another direction here, file transfer (generically) is, in my humble opinion, vastly over-used as a means to lash two systems together. One gating question has to be asked: is the business process that this (new) file transfer will support "real time" or "batch" in nature?
If the former, you probably shouldn't be using file transfers. You should probably be using some sort of "live" record-at-a-time access, which in modern vernacular and language might be called a "service interface." A file transfer means: 1. The data are frozen at a moment in time. Any subsequent updates to the system of record won't be reflected. Then you have to figure out how to synchronize updates, if necessary. 2. You typically lose the "meta data" associated with the data, which includes the security policies and governance. I can't even begin to count the number of times companies and governments have gotten into trouble because they "lost" a file containing all their employee records, all their customer records, or whatever. Downloading a bunch of personally identifiable information to a PC to work around a firewall rule is just begging for a security breach! Omit needless file transfers! - - - - - Timothy Sipples Resident Enterprise Architect Value Creation & Complex Deals Team IBM Growth Markets (Based in Singapore) E-Mail: [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
