Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT Reviews

We use Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT solution to achieve file standardization through automated workflows. In this process, when a file is sent, it's first routed to an ICAP server. Think of a file transfer as simply moving a file from one location to another. However, in this case, instead of transferring the file directly, we connect it to the ICAP server first. This intermediary step allows the file to be scanned and sanitized before it's delivered to its final destination.

We implemented Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT to securely transfer and share files, as well as automate file transfers and processes.

GoAnywhere has significantly improved our data exchange security. It's now faster, easier to use, and more convenient than before. It has improved automation, visibility, and security.

GoAnywhere offers good visibility through its file transfer logs. This allows me to track changes within my organization, including who made them, what changes were made, and when they occurred.

GoAnywhere's automation feature has streamlined our workflows by eliminating the need for extensive coding, programming, or scripting knowledge. Its user-friendly interface allows us to create workflows simply by dragging and dropping components. Additionally, GoAnywhere offers a library of pre-defined workflows readily available for use. These pre-built workflows can be easily integrated into our workspace with a single click. While some workflows may require minor adjustments, such as specifying a CTPS certificate, link, or IP address, GoAnywhere significantly reduces the need for manual configuration.

GoAnywhere integrates with our existing IT infrastructure and systems. It also offers a feature that allows for integration with Outlook. This integration enables us to send files securely via email through a link. However, using the standard email attachment method does not provide any file protection. The Outlook plugin streamlines this process. Once installed, it provides an option within our Outlook interface to connect and send files directly from our mailbox. This eliminates the need to access the GoAnywhere platform separately, generate a link, and then send it – saving us valuable time and steps.

The training and portal videos familiarized me with the benefits of GoAnywhere. I believe someone new to the platform could grasp most of these benefits within a week or two, though not all of them in such a short timeframe.

The most valuable feature, GoDrive, requires an additional license. It functions similarly to Dropbox, providing a central location where all users can easily upload files. Once uploaded, the files are continuously monitored, encrypted, and inaccessible to unauthorized users. Additionally, GoDrive offers image-sharing capabilities. For instance, if we want to send a file to someone via email, we can enter their email address. Instead of sending the file through the exchange server, GoDrive generates a link. This link, when sent to the recipient, allows them to access the file with a single click. The link can be set to expire after a specific number of downloads or uploads, and we can even add a password for further security. In essence, GoDrive eliminates the need to use the exchange server for file sharing.

Fortra needs to offer more use cases for GoAnywhere MFT during training.

I have been using Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT for 2 months.

GoAnywhere MFT is stable.

GoAnywhere MFT is scalable. They have a 99 percent retention rate.

The technical support is good. Their development team releases new versions 4 times a year.

Positive

I deployed GoAnywhere myself and found it to be easy to install. It's the simplest product I've installed so far. The process takes less than 15 minutes. All you need is the installation file. You download it, and there are almost no prerequisites for running the software.

GoAnywhere uses a web-based console for management. You'll get an HTTPS link with an IP address to access it. You can then log in to your web console to manage GoAnywhere. Even deploying it on multiple machines is straightforward; there's an agent that simplifies the process.

GoAnywhere MFT delivers a positive return on investment, as evidenced by our extensive customer base.

I would rate Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT 8 out of 10.

GoAnywhere allows us to encrypt our data using either TGP or AES encryption.

Depending on the use case, one or two people are required to maintain GoAnywhere.

We offer GoAnywhere to a wide range of clients, from small IT shops to large banks with thousands of employees.

I recommend reading about all the additional features, such as GoDrive. You should also be aware that GoAnywhere is highly scalable.

We have a lot of different files that we need to move from in-house to a vendor. While our online banking configuration is real-time, we upload files every morning to cover some aspects of that online banking. Customers also send us files and we pull them off of our secure servers and push them on to our core application vendor. In summary, our use case is almost entirely secure file movement: making sure a file gets from here to there.

We're running this as a cluster with four Linux platforms, two at our on-site and two at our co-location site. Always live. 

Our web development team wants to do source code management for change control of our executables. They are working right now on setting that up. GoAnywhere is the resource that handles movements from test to acceptance, and from acceptance into production. The reason we do that with GoAnywhere is that its logging capabilities, of all of the actions that have been taken, are exquisite, in my opinion, and I've been working in core for 40 years. If anybody wants to know if something did or didn't happen, I can point at a specific line in a job log that says yes or no.

It has also centralized the exchange of data. We used to use an iSeries to run our core operations. There was a job scheduler on it, and we used that to invoke certain GoAnywhere jobs to do motion. Since then, we've converted off of the iSeries, and because GoAnywhere can run on Linux or Windows platforms, we didn't need to do away with it. We could just move it. And we could also move some of the scheduling that we still had to do off of the Series and have GoAnywhere's job scheduler handle it for us. And that's what we did.

We used to use two or three other scripted FTP processes in Robo-FTP, where the operator would double-click on an icon on a desktop to do something. Those all got moved into GoAnywhere.

And its workflow features have very much helped us to eliminate manual processes. That has made our operations a lot smoother. We've had some staff changes. One of those staff changes necessitated our automating a bunch of functions and we're doing so and continuing to improve that automation. In addition, the automation of file transfers has helped to reduce workload by about one-third to one-half of an FTE.

In terms of handling more documents, we set up a lot of file transfers to the core application server of documents created in our bank's branch system. GoAnywhere supported all of that.

All of our internal, as well as external file transfers, are secured now, and GoAnywhere is what was used. We used GoAnywhere when we created the external servers to go from FTP to secure FTP and GoAnywhere supported that transition really easily. We were able to get rid of one internal FTP server after we did that.

The workflow features eliminate the need for custom programs and scripts for file transfers. It handles a lot of different things. We have gone into database programming, to some extent, with a few of our transfers that require a bit of translation between how they are when we pick them up and what they need to look like for where we send them. I'm looking forward to using that ability a little bit more.

Another nice feature is that you can invoke a native program from GoAnywhere. That helps you because you don't have to get fancy with agents. If a native program runs on the server that GoAnywhere is running on, like sed or perl, you can use it,

The intuitiveness of GoAnywhere's user interface is pretty good. The nature of job scheduling is that it can sometimes be really intricate, and difficult to see and understand. We've had learning on it, but the main person who supports it for us digs in and finds documentation that explains how to go about things. We'll then run some test jobs to make sure it works the way we think it's going to, and then we'll use it. In general, it's very intuitive.

When it comes to GoAnywhere's workflow features, there are a couple of areas where I'd like to get a little more consistency. The two aspects of scheduling that we use are scheduled jobs and monitors. And there's cross-capability between the two. We've done some philosophical thinking about when a function should be handled by a monitor and when it should be handled by a scheduled job. When a monitor invokes a project to accomplish something, that gets logged as a job. I've had a little difficulty figuring out where to look to see the monitor's activities itself, to see if the monitor is having a problem. 

For instance, if an account on a secure FTP server has expired, the monitor that uses that account doesn't announce to us that it's having a problem. I want to work with them on this to get it fixed.

Another aspect would be greater visibility into exactly what's happening. But part of that is because we haven't learned how to look at it. I still need to establish some training for my people who support this. We've learned a lot and done a lot with the documentation, which is pretty good, but some formal training would really help tie together a lot of the little tidbits of knowledge in our heads.

We have been using HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT for eight to 10 years.

I don't believe it was any fault of HelpSystems, but the service did stop working for a couple of hours one time. I need to check with them and see if there's a way to restart that says, "Go back and pick up the stuff that didn't run." In this particular instance, the number of things that didn't run was small enough that I could manually look at the schedule screen and figure out what needed to be run. Still, I'm wondering if there's a button I could have pushed that would have taken care of all of that automatically. If that's not a feature they have, that might be something they should implement.

Aside from supporting the occasional new needs, we don't have plans to increase our use of GoAnywhere.

Their tech support is pretty good in responding to us and in helping us to work through any issues that might crop up.

At times we've had some difficulty getting a point across, but I won't assign 100 percent of the responsibility for that to them. Sometimes we won't phrase things correctly. But they don't run away from us. They stick to it and figure out what's going on.

Positive

I didn't do the original deployment. It was done by some engineers who reported to me, and then our web developer did the current implementation of four Linux servers. But the original setup was pretty straightforward.

I have one guy who supports the servers but he rarely has to do anything on them. I also have one web developer who manages all of the jobs. It works out to 1.25 FTEs and that's because they're always looking at ways they can make these projects work better.

GoAnywhere pays for itself easily. It has saved us work and enables us to sleep through the night.

They were open-minded and they did what they could for us, in terms of cost, when we made the transition to GoAnywhere.

And when we migrated from the iSeries to Linux servers, HelpSystems carried forward the startup money that we spent when we originally installed GoAnywhere on the iSeries. We did not have to pay startup fees on the Linux servers. We got credit and that was nice of them.

GoAnywhere was on our radar before we got it. We knew of other options, but after seeing the demo for GoAnywhere, we saw that it does what we needed. I did do a small business case for it that included an examination of other options, but that was a long time ago.

I'm fond of this tool. I don't know how much of an opportunity I'll get to explore other aspects of GoAnywhere's services, but I like what it's doing for us. 

I would 100 percent recommend GoAnywhere to someone else who is looking for solutions in this area.

Our primary use case is file transfer between trading partners and internally to different applications on Windows, Linux, AIX, and iSeries machines.

We are running on Windows. 

In the past, scripts were written in Windows batch files and it was taking lots of time. With GoAnywhere, it is simpler and has more functionality.

The scripts can be written very quickly. With GoAnywhere advanced workflow, I was able to expand the scripting to include more features like emailing the log. I was able to send emails to the business unit that included what file was transferred and at what time.

Our old system used to take five minutes to transfer over 10MB of data. With GoAnywhere, it takes a few seconds. Now I can perform and schedule more FTPs than before and it takes fewer system resources.

The most valuable feature is the Advanced Workflows. It is useful for an open VMS system. With DOS-style batch files, it was long and difficult. With GoAnywhere, however, it was very easy.

With the Advanced Workflows, I can manipulate the date and send the file with an old date to the host. This is a great feature.

It has built-in zip compression as well as encryption features and we do not have to buy additional licenses for this functionality.

I also like the IP Filter list. It can protect the system from outside attacks using Banned IP addresses. It has very good security features.

With Web users, I can use the IP filter. It can be done with each user.

GoAnywhere integrates well with other products.

It sends an email alert if the process fails.

I think that this product has most of the features we require, although the license is expensive.

DNS support needs attention. If the hostname has a dash in it then it does not work. Without a dash being included, it works fine. This is something that needs to updated in the next release.

The shared mailbox support for OWA in the cloud needs to be improved. The shared mailbox does not have a password, and we cannot use it. If there is a password for it then it works well.

if you have host name with example aaa-fgju than in web user ip filter list the name aaa-fgju will not work. If you have host name fghhg1 then it will work. The agent is good feature but license is bit expensive. 

I have been using GoAnywhere MFT for more than six years.

It is very stable. We never experience downtime, exept during upgrades.

Scalability is very good. I saw only this level with high availability solutions.

Technical support is excellent. They are always willing to help and want to resolve the issue ASAP.

Prior to GoAnywhere, we used FTP Serv-U and FTP Voyager. FTP Voyager is a free product but the functionality is very limited. It was not able to meet our business requirements. As technology changes, FTP Voyager does not have good features for new technology.

It also has high CPU utilization because it was written for workstation OS. The interface for FTP Voyager was simple but very functionality-wise, it was too basic. There were lots of restrictions while using it.

 Everything was written manually. Lots of the time, we were not able to justify business needs with FTP Voyager. We needed a product that serves our business needs and found that GoAnywhere was the perfect one for us.

The initial setup was simple. It took only one hour to set up the product.

The product was implemented in-house.

It saves lots of time in terms of administration. With is product, I can perform other duties and it requires less intervention on a daily basis.

Licensing can be expensive and it depends upon which features you want to buy. If the license were cheaper then we would buy more features.

I have used other vendors and found that GoAnywhere was the winner in terms of price and our business requirements. In our case, it meets all of the business requirements.

This suitability of this product depends on business requirements.

For anybody who is implementing this product, I would suggest taking some time to learn Advanced Workflows because it is complex.

We are using it for Managed File Transfer and secure FTP and BGP processes for incoming and outgoing files. We also move data inside of the network using the GoAnywhere agent between servers, and we have also used the scripting capabilities of GoAnywhere for the change in a file's name and other things.

GoAnywhere MFT helps centralize the exchange of data between systems, employees, customers, and trading partners.

The interface of GoAnywhere MFT is good. It is easy to use. It is clear. The help is very good.

GoAnywhere’s workflow features eliminate the need for custom programs and scripts for file transfer. It is very important for us because normally when you receive the file, you need to perform a lot of work to be sure that you can deliver or integrate with the backend. It helps to have the capabilities for automation or manipulation of the files through the workflows.

GoAnywhere’s workflow features help to eliminate manual processes, especially processes related to encryption using BGP.

It is very easy to use. It is easy to create projects in a graphical environment. The configuration and the setup of the environment is very easy. In general, the use of the software is very simple. It is clear, and it is one of the best products. 

It is very simple to use, and it is powerful. The configuration is very flexible in terms of the protocols and algorithms for encryption and security configuration.

In some cases, the logs need deeper information. In terms of communication and checking, they need to go a little deeper.

In some scenarios, when you are in a cluster environment, the load-balancing capabilities of the gateway need to be improved a little. This functionality needs some improvement.

In general, workflow features are good, but when you need to use the transformation capabilities, there are some problems in terms of the way they manage the resources of the machine. There are some limitations in the size of the file, so the transformation capability has to be improved. 

I have been using this solution for 3 years.

Their support needs improvement. We have a partner, but we are not receiving a quick response. I do not know if the customers have the same experience, but in our opinion, it needs some improvement in terms of the response time. I would rate their support a 7 out of 10.

Neutral

We work with some IBM products, such as IBM Sterling File Gateway. In some scenarios, it is as powerful as GoAnywhere MFT, but it is much more complex to use and set up. GoAnywhere MFT is easier. IBM has an advantage in terms of support of Connect:Direct, which is a proprietary protocol. It is a very strong protocol. It is one of the differentiators of IBM.

Its deployment is very easy.

We are not making a calculation, but it depends on the kind of file you are moving. In some cases, if the file does not go through, you could have problems with the logistics, but I do not have a number for the return on investment.

It is very attractive. In terms of the capacity of the product and functionality, it is a good price. Considering its capabilities, its price is good. 

We know GoAnywhere has the capability to connect to popular ICAP servers, but we are not using any.

I would rate GoAnywhere MFT a 9 out of 10.

This is used in a virtual environment where a number of customers establish a requirement to send or receive files. The files are sent using SFTP and Zip with projects providing details to customers on when and what was sent. We send these files internally or externally. Other things the solution is used for is cleaning up data from sent or received files for projects and customers. The environment consists of Windows and Linux systems to which each customer presents the data to send or import.

The use of this product has helped improve our organization and its ability to send or receive. It has done this by allowing us to remove any homegrown process and centralize needed actions. It has helped consolidate these areas of action or homegrown processes to one location in a way that is workflow based. This workflow and central location of the process allows us to hinge at one area to understand where or what any issue or concern may be. Doing this can help or allow us to find areas to be resolved, if needed, or establish new ways of providing a product.  

I have found that the workflow process has a easy to use or viewable section which is key to this product. You have the ability to create the steps in a viewable, actionable area. Review these steps and set them up in an order that makes sense to the process you need. Along with this ease of viewing and ability to move things around you can validate those actions by placing them in a debug state. Here you can view and find your issues or concerns as the workflow and view are an asset for this product and valuable.

In using this product, I have not found many areas of the product or service that need to be completely improved. However, with any product, improvement of a service or product can always be reviewed. If one were to look to improve it:

1. Continue to look forward and listen to its customers. 
2. Improvement in support or product relies on being ingenious, supportive, and listening to its customer base. 

I have been using this solution for over a year.

The organization has ways to listen to its customers and providing that feedback is working as the company listens and provides support as applicable.

Yes, I used a homegrown software.

We are a healthcare company, and large employers and health plans will hire us to provide our services to their employees and members. They then have to send us files as to who their employees are, and we have to process them under the guidance of HIPAA. GoAnywhere is our file transfer platform for securely sharing health information.

The workflow features eliminate the need for custom programs and scripts for file transfers. The impact has been huge and has saved us many months of engineering time. GoAnywhere's workflow features have helped us eliminate manual processes and have streamlined our operations and made them more secure and repeatable.

We have been able to eliminate single-function tools or unsecured file transfer methods like email-based file transfers. Before switching to GoAnywhere, we had a lot of files being sent to us over email.

GoAnywhere has enabled us to allocate staff toward other work and has freed up engineering talent to focus on more important problems. We have been able to reduce the workload as well.

We like that GoAnywhere helps to centralize the exchange of data among our systems, employees, and customers. We wanted something that was scalable and secure and had a nice API, so we could automate the creation of new accounts and new directories and build a workflow around it. Every time we sign up a new customer, we can automatically create a setup for them. Some customers use a username and password, and others use a pre-shared key. We can build the workflow so that when we receive a new file, it alerts our application servers to go pick it up and process it. It is our one and only method by which we exchange data with our largest customers.

The user interface is highly intuitive; we got it set up and running within a matter of days. It is useful when support staff are trying to troubleshoot issues.

The comprehensiveness of GoAnywhere's workflow features is very high, and it has met all of our needs.

At present, HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT integrates with an antivirus solution, but it's a bit kludgy. It would be nice if the antivirus were built into the product so that it doesn't require integration.

We've been using it for four and a half years.

It's been very stable, and we have never had issues. It's stable enough that we give our customers a service level on the service that we provide with this solution.

For what we do, it scales perfectly. We haven't had any issues.

We use it for two or three different use cases, and it gets used every single day. It's mission-critical to us.

We're not adding any new use cases to it at present, but our use of it will grow as we assign new customers.

I haven't personally contacted technical support, but as far as I know, we've had no issues with it.

We previously used a homegrown solution and switched because we wanted something that would scale and that wouldn't require customization every time we signed up a new customer.

The initial setup was very straightforward and fast. We had it going and were using it within a matter of days.

The part-time effort of one engineer is required for maintenance of the solution.

We implemented it ourselves.

As for ROI, it probably paid for itself in the first two months. The license cost for the first year was roughly equivalent to two months of an engineer's salary. By freeing up engineers from creating customized solutions, it paid for itself immediately.

HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT is very reasonably priced for the value it brings.

Make sure that you fully spec out your environment and include all the servers, clusters, and features you're going to need before you worry about the price.

If you are dependent on file transfers for your business, there isn't a better solution. Don't waste your time trying to evaluate other solutions. I would highly recommend GoAnywhere and would rate it at ten on a scale from one to ten.

It is a file transfer solution. We have different scenarios for different sectors, like banking and financial sectors. Customers want to move from traditional SMTP servers to enterprise solutions with logs and monitoring features.

The user interface is simple. We can automate the solution. We can deploy the product in different kinds of infrastructure. We can do a lot with the product in automation. We can automate it for file transformation.

The security features must be updated regularly. The newer versions must be released sooner. The solution must add new features at least every year. The solution must provide integration with SSO.

I have been using the solution for around three years.

The tool is quite stable.

The tool is scalable. Around 30 people are using the product in my organization.

The technical support team provides delayed solutions.

Neutral

The initial setup is easy. The tool is very easy to deploy and use. We deploy the solution for many clients and have used many cloud providers. The time taken for deployment depends on the type of deployment.

The product is not cheap, but it is not expensive. The price depends on the modules. The solution is worth the money.

My recommendation depends on the customers’ requirements and how they transfer files in their organization. Some organizations do data transfer only over email. Compared to its competitors, the tool provides good features. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We're using GoAnywhere mostly for file transfers to different sites. Normally, we allow any incoming transfer. We go out and grab the files and bring them in through the GoAnywhere system.

GoAnywhere makes it easy to move files around. We have quite a bit of information we have to transfer to around 300 different companies that require us to send data on a regular basis. If we did this manually, it would require several employees. 

With GoAnywhere's workflow features, we don't need to write custom programs and scripts for file transfers. We could write them, but it would cost more time and man-hours to get done. By centralizing everything in GoAnywhere, we're able to eliminate 100 or so custom programs and scripts. 

GoAnywhere automates all of the file transfers, so we don't have to do it manually. We're sending out files every minute. It has reduced our workload tremendously and made everything less complicated. We're not necessarily sending out more files, but we're saving time. If I had to quantify it, I would estimate that it cuts our workload by about 80 hours a week.

GoAnywhere centralizes the data exchange, saving us quite a bit of time.

GoAnywhere's interface could be a little more intuitive. It can be hard to grasp at first, but once you have a decent understanding, it's pretty straightforward.

We've been using GoAnywhere for four or five years.

The program is great. We've never really had a problem with stability. We did have an issue with the old server we were running it on, but that's not GoAnywhere's problem.

I've never had any issues with scalability. I'm sure we'll add more jobs to GoAnywhere in the future. We add them every now and then, but it's not frequent. We're already using it fairly extensively. However, we probably don't know what features are available, so we could possibly do more.

We've worked with HelpSystems support, and it has always been excellent. I rate their support 10 out of 10. They helped us transfer several jobs to the new server because the syntax of setting it up wasn't exactly the same. We were migrating from a pretty old version.

Positive

I wasn't involved with the initial deployment, but it takes less than an hour to set GoAnywhere up and move it to a new server. Most of that time was spent moving the jobs over because we had preexisting jobs to move from the old server. It takes one systems analyst to manage GoAnywhere, and it's not a full-time job. 

GoAnywhere is low cost for what it does, and we save a lot of hours with it.

I rate HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT 10 out of 10. It's a great product that does everything we need it to do. I would advise anyone implementing GoAnywhere to get some training and learn how to build different jobs.