We performed a comparison between ActiveBatch by Redwood and Fortra's Globalscape Managed File Transfer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."For developers, it is easy to orchestrate the workflows and the integration has been very easy."
"Since we are no longer waiting for an operator to see that a job is finished, we have changed our daily cycle from running in eight hours down to about five. We had a third shift-operator retire and that position was never refilled."
"Approximately ~20 hours of manual effort have been reduced to ~5 hours with the help of ActiveBatch."
"ActiveBatch provides summary reports and logs for further analysis and improvements in monitoring servers, which is very handy."
"It has helped with scheduling complex jobs with simple scripts."
"ActiveBatch's Self-Service Portal allows our business units to run and monitor their own workloads. They can simply run and review the logs, but they can't modify them. It increases their productivity because they are able to take care of things on their own. It saves us time from having to rerun the scripts, because the business units can just go ahead and log in and and rerun it themselves."
"The Jobs Library has been a tremendous asset. For the most, that's what we use. There are some outliers, but we pretty much integrate those Jobs Library steps throughout the process, whether it's REST calls, FTP processes, or file copies and moves... That has helped us to build end-to-end workflows."
"I found ActiveBatch Workload Automation to be a very good scheduling tool. What I like best about it is that it has very less downtime when managing many complex scheduling workflows, so I'm very impressed with ActiveBatch Workload Automation."
"Its ease of use is most valuable. Especially for the configuration of the rules, we don't need to have any scripting knowledge. Previously, we used to have a lot of custom scripts to transfer these files. Now, it's all managed in one place, and it's like a self-service. It's saving a lot of time for us."
"The most valuable feature is the automation engine, because it allows you to script or program and it has lots of different features and options. It's something like an IDE for programmers, where they can add variables, arrays, loops, et cetera."
"The Advanced Workflow Engine it comes with is brilliant because it allows us to create scripts and perform behind-the-scenes jobs that would otherwise require a third-party solution... You would have to create a special code on the outside to get all that other stuff done in the background. With Globalscape, we can get all of that done in one package."
"The High Security Module is valuable. It allows for increased security. It allows me to integrate Globalscape with our Active Directory. So, we manage all our customer accounts outside of Globalscape, and it allows us to import them with LDAP queries. It's very convenient. It also gives our customers the confidence that it's a very secure product."
"It bolsters security with features like Data Loss Prevention and seamless integration with DLP for a safe and compliant environment which enables real-time document sharing and control over file actions."
"The Event Rules functionality is a key feature. It is very simple to understand and work with. If you have a support team that doesn't know anything about coding, they can really relate to the way event rules are designed. So, I try to make them as simplistic as possible when we create file transmissions. When I first started working in Globalscape, a lot of the file transmissions were handled through Advanced Workflow, which is a similar product. We had a lot of scripts in Advanced Workflow. I moved them to Event Viewer in Globalscape because of the simplicity of building scripts and understanding how they work. It literally takes 5 to 10 minutes to set one up, but if you're in an advanced workflow, it could take an hour to two hours to understand via code what it is actually doing. It has definitely been a plus."
"The fact that it is Windows-based was a huge factor for us because most of our endpoints are Windows-based. And the ability to configure it means standardization is available with the product."
"It made things easier. Before, there were five to 10 different software solutions spread out over 10 different servers. Now, everything is being centralized into one location; facilitating, supporting, maintaining, training people, etc. There have been gains just because Globalscape EFT is more efficient at moving things around than our previous other applications. For instance, if I am connecting to someone over the Internet or transmitting for the client, the speed of transmitting those files through SFTP is 20% to 30% faster than our previous automated solution. Therefore, we have seen time savings."
"Setting up the software was hard."
"There are some issues with this version and finding the jobs that it ran. If you're looking at 1,000 different jobs, it shows based on the execution time, not necessarily the run time. So, if there was a constraint waiting, you may be looking for it in the wrong time frame. Plus, with thousands of jobs showing up and the way it pages output jobs, sometimes you end up with multiple pages on the screen, then you have to go through to find the specific job you're looking for. On the opposite side, you can limit the daily activity screen to show only jobs that failed or jobs currently running, which will shrink that back down. However, we have operators who are looking at the whole nightly cycle to make sure everything is there and make sure nothing got blocked or was waiting. Sometimes, they have a hard time finding every item within the list."
"The monitoring dashboard could have been more user-friendly so that in the monitoring dashboard itself we can see the total number of jobs created in the system and how many were currently active/scheduled/chained."
"The reporting needs improvement. There is a real need for the ability to generate audit reports on the fly. It needs to be a lot easier than what I can do right now. This is a major item for me."
"They should offer pricing that is more affordable."
"Whenever there is an overload, we are seeing crashes happening."
"Some improvements can be made to the user interface."
"The help center and documentation are not that helpful."
"It could improve its operations by incorporating real-time collaboration features like those offered by platforms such as Microsoft OneDrive and Office 365."
"Instead of using a fat client to access the administrator panel, where you have to install client software on any server that you need to use to access, I would like them to switch to a web-based model where you could connect from anywhere without having to maintain and install the software."
"In the beginning, it could be considered a bit challenging."
"Another area for improvement is the ARM (Auditing and Reporting Module) database, in terms of accuracy and the data being logged."
"I do have some complaints or concerns around the centralized platform for the management of file transfer operations, and I know that they're working towards a better solution there. At its core, it's a good feature, but needs some improvements. I would like to see a web interface so that there is universal support across versions, because we have test and production environments that aren't always in sync. It would be nice to have one administrative interface to access both."
"We need some capability for faster transfers and large file transfers. If we want to transfer a terabyte file, it is not capable of doing that right now. They say it is possible, but we are not able to do so with our environment."
"There are two ways to install Globalscape: as a standalone server or as a high-availability server, either Active-Active or Active-Standby. We are currently using standalone servers. That means if we want to upgrade the software, I shut down one of the two back-end servers, upgrade the software, make sure everything is correct, and then turn traffic back on to that one. I then proceed to upgrade the second server. With their high-availability solution, that is not a possibility. Both servers have to be shut down to perform the upgrade. We're a 24/7 shop. We don't have a window where we can have downtime."
"The solution lags a bit when thousands of jobs, multiple users, and multiple developers are accessing it at the same time."
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ActiveBatch by Redwood is ranked 5th in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 35 reviews while Fortra's Globalscape Managed File Transfer is ranked 12th in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 10 reviews. ActiveBatch by Redwood is rated 9.2, while Fortra's Globalscape Managed File Transfer is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of ActiveBatch by Redwood writes "Flexible, easy to use, and offers good automation". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortra's Globalscape Managed File Transfer writes "Rock solid, secure, and excellent price and quality of service". ActiveBatch by Redwood is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, Tidal by Redwood, Redwood RunMyJobs and IBM Workload Automation, whereas Fortra's Globalscape Managed File Transfer is most compared with MOVEit, Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct, WS_FTP Server, BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer and JSCAPE by Redwood. See our ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. Fortra's Globalscape Managed File Transfer report.
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