Why MFT needs APIs

In a large organizations’ journey to digital, Managed File Transfer (MFT) owners are often left behind because they are not able to deal with new application development methods and architecture.

Even with a Center of Excellence and/or Shared Service for MFT that offers one-stop shopping, business application owners often remain reluctant to use MFT for their new projects and consider traditional MFT solutions too limiting for most DevOps initiatives.

Traditional MFT products have come with API support, but this couldn’t necessarily answer the problem described above. Today’s MFT solutions start with REST APIs.

Why are REST APIs helpful for file transfer?

There are several reasons:

• Today, everything communicates via REST APIs – they are light, efficient and easy to use. They make everything else look old and obsolete.
• REST API are easy to expose, understand and update through the swagger interface.
• API Management tools allow information to be centralized and can act as a repository to access and consume MFT services.

But this only addresses the usability of the API. What can we improve using the API? Here are two examples:

Use APIs to configure and provision file transfers

• Create, update and deploy a file transfer route at the same time the application requires it, which introduces the file transfer within the application lifecycle and the MFT service within the DevOps initiative.
• Integrate provisioning of partners with workflow and applications, managing the partner lifecycle to ease on-boarding and maintain information accuracy over time.

Use APIs to integrate applications

The file that is being transferred within the business process, such as an order created through a business application, triggers a file transfer to send the bill of material to the logistician.

The interface application doesn’t need to rely on technical MFT parameters. The MFT service is designed to translate the business ID into the appropriate technical parameters to initiate the transfer.

API-powered MFT software is the answer

Providing these two levels of APIs at both the design and run phase makes MFT an important part of modern IT, which is why Axway’s MFT solutions offer comprehensive integration capabilities.

With Axway MFT, you can leverage complete business-level REST APIs to integrate third-party or custom applications.