Axway AMPLIFY Managed File Transfer Reviews

We use the platform as a gateway for data exchange between internal and external applications.

The product is simple for encrypting data transfer of all the assets in our system. The key advantage is to provide a robust DMZ environment.

It is complicated to manage multi-operations, particularly in handling file name changes within file transcripts. This particular area needs improvement. There could be an endpoint connection for multiple operations.

We have been using Axway AMPLIFY Managed File Transfer for 20 years.

The product doesn't scale for data transfer processes. It works slowly in case of multiple files, delaying the real-time transfer process. I rate the scalability a seven out of ten.

The technical support services are good regarding response time and first-level support.

The initial setup is fast. The process is very well documented.

The platform's price aligns with the market.

We explored a lot of products. We decided to go with Axway AMPLIFY Managed File Transfer as it is more compliant with our requirements.

Axway AMPLIFY has proven beneficial for operational efficiency, leading to significant time savings. It showcases a robust performance, particularly in handling peak loads or large volumes of file transfers. It is easy to integrate with third-party solutions as well.

I recommend it for managing complex file transfers. However, I recommend open-source products for smaller companies with limited business requirements.

I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We deploy Axway Amplify to a server hosted on AWS, but it isn't a cloud SaaS solution. We use it for large-scale file transfers. Our client had multiple vendors with whom they exchanged payroll and shipment-related files. We use Amplify externally to exchange files with vendors and internally on our 500 servers, which talk to each other using the files. All the file transfers transfer for that client went through this application, including the encryption, file check, etc.

Before implementing Axway, we were doing script-based point-to-point file transfers using a shell script. That means if a file has to go from server A to server B, we have to open a network port within those two servers. It got kind of messy as the number of servers and the file transfer requirements grew. 

Axway consolidated all of our communications into one platform, simplifying network and port management. Now, all we have to do is open one port to this application, and we can remove all the firewall rules on that port. It's much more straightforward to manage from a security perspective. We used to rely on an archaic FTP solution, but Axway features SFTP, so it was an improvement security-wise. 

Deploying certificates and encryption-decryption are effortless with Axway. It features a single pane of glass view, where you can view all the file transfers going on inside your organization. 

One area of improvement is troubleshooting. When a transfer fails, they provide little information about the login, which makes troubleshooting difficult. Also, file transfer scheduling is primitive. By that, I mean you can't define a complex schedule, like scheduling a job to run at particular hours multiple times in a day. 

Also, Axway Amplify doesn't have built-in analytics, so you need to use another product for that. It would be helpful if they could do some basic analytics, like statistics for a 24-hour period. I'd like to see something simple that shows how many file transfers came in and went out from the environment, and how many failed. 

I would also like to see Axway implement online patch management. We have to take the application completely offline to apply the patch and then restart. Other applications support online patch management, so I would appreciate it if they could do something similar. Of course, a restart would still be required, but online patch management could significantly reduce our downtime.

I have three years of experience with Axway Amplify, but I switched roles about two months ago, so I no longer use it. 

Axway is stable up to a certain point, but when the number of file transfers multiplies, the application sometimes crashes. You have to do thorough capacity planning if you are adding more and more file transfers to the platform. 

Let's say we have 500,000 transfers, and everything is smooth. We'll start to see problems if the number of transfers surges to one million in a day. We had to do lots of capacity building to avoid this, like server provisioning and increasing the CPUs and memory. Your infrastructure needs to keep up with your file transfer growth.

We had a two-node cluster, and you can do a three-node cluster easily, but I don't think they support more than three nodes. There are some limitations, but we could handle a million transfers a day just fine with two nodes. We have around 50 users logged into Axway daily checking the transfers and related stuff.

Axway technical support is great. I would probably give them an eight or nine out of 10. My only problem is that they don't provide enough support on the weekend. Everything else is good apart from that.

Positive

Setting up Axway Amplify is straightforward. First, we set up a two-node cluster, and it took us around a couple of days to deploy the application after that. Including the server build and all the network configuration, it took about three weeks total. Then it took another week to get it into production. 

Axway provided support during our deployment. One support engineer was assigned to our account for around four weeks during our production deployment.

In the past, we needed multiple IT personnel to set up the file transfers. Now we have a three-person team handling all file transfer requests for the entire organization. That's a massive return on investment. We used to have 20 to 30 people doing that stuff, but that has been reduced to only three or four.

I don't know the exact cost of the Amplify license, but the support agreement costs around $30,000 annual.

I rate Axway Amplify nine out of 10 because it's easy to deploy, use, and create jobs. Job creation is straightforward. It doesn't take long to set up a job, and you can quickly get on with it. You can get started with production within a week after deploying.

If you're implementing Amplify, I recommend thorough capacity planning before deploying. If you don't have that many transfers, you are probably fine, but you need to be mindful of growth in transfers. As our systems become increasingly complex, we see more and more transfers happening. If you're starting multiple new projects, the number of transfers will increase by 20 to 30 percent. You have to pay attention to resource utilization and do capacity planning.

We have used it since 2009, creating a new MFT platform based on it; upgraded over the years.

It helps connect different environments (zOS, Windows, *nix, and others) with minimal effort.

The capability to write for my specific needs, meaning the possibility of easily extending the product features to get what I need.

Also, it makes a logical link between the inbound/outbound transfer, and makes it clearly visible. This is a very important feature for managing transfer with different environments, and it's very helpful for troubleshooting.

The areas in need of improvement are the monitoring and the cutoff management, when needed. Today you have at least two solutions: Buy the other Axway suite, Sentinel, or integrate it into your monitoring system.

Also, improvement in Data Encoding would be very appreciated (I'm thinking of ASCII-EBCDIC, ASCII-ASCII, etc.).

No issues. Up to today, the limits are related to the OS.

Not yet.

Very good support, a high rating for onsite, phone, and web support.

We chose this solution to extend functionalities, not to switch.

The setup is quite easy and very affordable for any sys admin. My experience is limited to Windows Server systems only.

Pricing and licensing are related to the protocols you choose to support.

At that time, 2009, there was a solution available from Sterling (today IBM) and another from Primeur.

For basic functions it's easy to onboard, it just requires a bit of effort. To go further, it can be helpful to know a programming language (I choose Perl because I'm used to it).

It's a good product to work with.

• File transfers
• Tracking
• Robustness
• Security

The entire organization is using this product for external and internal file transfers. This makes it a central hub for transfers.

Linking file transfer transactions to give end-to-end visibility.

I have used Secure Transport for four years.

We have had no major stability issues.

I would give technical support a rating of 9/10.

We didn’t have a previous solution.

The pricing is decent.

We evaluated IBM Sterling Integrator and IBM Sterling File Gateway.

Ensure that you are on the latest version and have the best support package for a quick resolution from the vendor.