JSCAPE Secure FTP Server is a platform independent managed file transfer server that supports FTP, FTPS, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS and WebDAV protocols. What this essentially means is that if you have a client program that supports these protocols, you can access the services created on JSCAPE Secure FTP Server. This includes desktop based client programs & mobile hand-held devices such as iPhones, Windows Mobile and BlackBerries.
Desktop programs offer a wide variety of client programs which can be used to access JSCAPE Secure FTP Server. An example of a commonly used program is FileZilla which supports FTPS/FTPES, FTP and SFTP protocols. JSCAPE Secure FTP Server supports creating custom HTML forms which can be integrated with the server's built-in web interface. An article describing how to use this feature can be found here .
Typically the majority of hand-held devices do not have rich client programs which support secure protocols, these programs typically fall in the realm of laptop and desktop based machines. Therefore the first task is to acquire a program which is compatible with your hand-held device. For example an SFTP client program for BlackBerry can be found here . Once the client program is installed you can access the documents on JSCAPE Secure FTP Server just as you would from a client program on a laptop.
A common concern when accessing documents on mobile devices is the secure transport of the documents, i.e. the documents are not transferred over a clear channel as this may expose private information to prying eyes. It is important to understand that the security of the transfer is dependent on which transfer protocol is employed and not so much on the client or the server. SFTP, FTPS & HTTPS are all secure ways to transfer files. SFTP employs SSH (typically version 2) to encrypt the data packets while FTPS and HTTPS use SSL to encrypt the transfer channel. Keeping this point in mind; rest assured that as long as you use these protocols your data is safe.
The effectiveness of mobile devices and JSCAPE Secure FTP Server can be illustrated with a simple example. Assume that one of your users has a mobile device with email enabled. You need them to quickly have their signature on a time sensitive document, however your user is at a location where there is no laptop in sight. The way to resolve this is to enable Adhoc Email on the Server Manager and then send an email containing the file link using the web interface to their email address, the link will be delivered to the mobile device where it can download the file, edit it and upload it back to the server. This of course assumes that the client's mobile device has a proper client program installed to upload the file.
Now imagine that both you and your client are at locations where you cannot access a laptop. With the appropriate dedicated File Upload triggers (for both users) existing on the server you can upload the file to the server using your mobile, this will send out an adhoc email to your client, the client in turn can modify and upload the file using his mobile which will send out an adhoc email back to your mobile device. Moreover this entire scenario can be carried out securely over secure transfer channels provided both you and your client use a SFTP client on the mobile device to send / recieve files and an SMTP server using secure protocol is used (e.g. Gmail's SMTP server operates over SSL or TLS ). Thus one can see that using mobile devices in conjunction with JSCAPE Secure FTP Server features can help towards saving precious business time & provide peace of mind through secure file transfer.
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