Solarwinds Serv U MFT Server 15

I believe calling it an MFT tool is misleading, it doesn’t meet with the market definition for MFT, which is further validated by its exclusion from Gartner’s MFT Market Snapshot 2021. As independent experts in secure, managed file transfer we strongly advise against running Solarwinds Serv-U MFT and Serv-U Secure FTP.”If you’re a Serv-U user, it would be worthwhile to read the rest of this review, the advisory and apply the hot fixes. Our expert MFT comparision service is designed to help you find the right MFT soultion to fit your business needs.If you’d like independent, expert advice on your options, contact our expert team who will walk you through the process of migrating to an actively developed/supported MFT platform, fit for the modern enterprise.Examining Solarwinds Serv-U MFT server, March 2021Recently, a company alerted us to an issue with SolarWinds Serv-U MFT, which our experts swiftly looked into.This particular Serv-U customer is a well-known global enterprise who – unfortunately – was given poor advice by the SolarWinds support team. It related to running a simple update to patch some bugs and provide some much-needed security enhancements. The customer’s technical team even took the opportunity to call the SolarWinds support team to double-check that users would be able to log in as stated below once the update had been run. However, upon running the update, upwards of 5,000 trading partners’ passwords were corrupted, resulting in mission-critical transfers failing. A quick glance at the SolarWinds Serv-U message board shows that many users have been having the same issues since September 2020, but there has been no official response from the Serv-U team, despite repeated requests for an update.The company’s frustrated technical team, backed by the board’s financial approval, engaged Pro2col to be their trusted advisors in finding an alternative platform.Is it really managed file transfer?Pro2col defines managed file transfer as needing to cover three key areas:The secure gateway or proxyThe file transfer server The workflow automation engineThere are frequently other elements to a solution but the above three are the basics. Gartner’s definition is slightly different but covers the same core features.“MFT on-premises offerings usually comprise four discrete functionalities that organisations can deploy separately. However, organisations often deploy them as a suite. The functionalities basic to MFT are server, client/agent, proxy and plug-in for ad hoc transfers.”Gartner – January 2021.Solarwinds only offers two of the three basics – the proxy and the server – meaning that by our definition, and that of Gartner, it isn’t a managed file transfer solution at all. It falls short on the most important element; the one which provides the most significant value to an organization. The workflow automation.Let’s take a deeper dive into what you don’t get when investing in Serv-U MFT Server.Serv-U MFT product analysisAs mentioned before, the basic building blocks of a managed file transfer solution comprise of the proxy, server and automation. We’re going to take a look at some of the limitations.The proxy is the simplest element of any managed file transfer

At Pro2col, we regularly review the managed file transfer market place. This means we can give the most up-to-date advice to our customers. Reviews might be prompted by an acquisition or merger, as well as ongoing monitoring of customer support, product updates and roadmaps.The latest Solarwinds Serv-U MFT server review, December 2024When SolarWinds bought the Serv-U SFTP & MFT product range from Rhinosoft in 2012, it appeared to offer the budget software vendor the opportunity to kick on and continue to develop the platform into a solution to compete with then market leaders, EFT Server and MOVEit. Fast forward 12 years and that couldn’t be further from the truth.Seeing three more Serv-U CVE’s this Summer, I thought it's time to take a more hands on approach to reviewing Solarwinds MFT solution. In the past, I’d appraised it from afar, taking on-board first-hand feedback from users of the solution we’d helped replace it with something else, whilst delving into the considerable online content to piece together the story. This time we downloaded the software and got stuck in.In specialising in managed file transfer solutions since 1999, I’ve got a pretty decent idea of what a company would need from a solution. We’ve been ever-present in the market throughout the ‘era’ the software has existed, helping to define what constitutes an MFT solution. To paraphrase it here, for the context of reviewing Serv-U, an MFT solution consists of at least three components, these are:A file transfer server, somewhere to host files for collection or to be uploaded to.A workflow engine, a tool that enables the pushing and pulling of files to files stores, internal and external to the business using it.A gateway, also known as a proxy, for securing the incoming and outgoing connections to either the file transfer server or the workflow engine.Other components regularly included are file collaboration, remote agents, email integration, dashboarding and more.MFT Server ArchitectureWith the above definition provided, the first point to note is the architecture of their MFT solution.File Transfer ServerWorkflow EngineProxyThe main component of Serv-U MFT is their file transfer server. It’s a reasonably functional server component supporting various files transfer protocols including SFTP, FTPS, HTTPS & less secure versions.This sadly is not just lacking but more or less non-existent. I often refer to the workflow engine as the ‘brains’ of an MFT solution but in SolarWinds Serv-U solution any offered capability counters the purpose of having an MFT solution. We’ll dig into that later.Serv-U MFT does have a proxy but it only does half the job. It does have a reverse proxy which is used to secure inbound connections to an MFT server. It doesn’t have an outbound proxy. In Serv-U’s case this isn’t a problem as it doesn’t support outbound connections due to no Workflow Engine.Serv-U Functionality or Lack ThereofServ-U MFT is so far behind other more complete managed file transfer solutions it's hard to know where to start when looking at capability and functionality. With that in mind, I’m going to focus

Folder monitors or timer/scheduled events, are missing. In fact, I would go as far as to say that any workflow automation would need to be driven from outside of Serv-U, begging the question: When a standard SFTP server is half the price, why would you purchase SolarWinds? – Serv-U File Server Administrator Guide 15.2.1DevelopmentI spoke with a previous Serv-U product manager back in 2019 and his response was pretty conclusive:“Serv-U is not scheduled for anything but maintenance as far as I know. It received an administration facelift but that was just about it; since we added the MFT proxy and there was no appetite to pursue scheduled transfers in a meaningful way, the product is essentially complete.”Past Serv-U Product ManagerThe limited progress Serv-U is making is made worse by irregular software release cadence and the lack of any new features. The release notes clearly show that updates are delivering security enhancements and patches. The Serv-U community board shows an increasing frustration by existing customers wanting answers, specifically to the Java issues, but getting no feedback.Solarwinds Serv-U Release Notes Solarwinds Serv-U Community ForumReviewsReview websites are becoming an increasingly valid way to gain an understanding of how well a product or company is performing. There are lots to choose from, but in the software marketplace G2 and Capterra are two of the best.Upon checking G2, we found it has five four-star Serv-U reviews, but even those provided the following feedback:The software depends on Java to run so, if you do not have it installed, Serv-U will not go anywhereSupport level could have been improvedThe user interface can take some time to realise all the features it offersUI is kind of outdated and not responsive – and quite expensiveThere have been no positive reviews since 2019.Most interesting was Solarwinds’ extensive catalogue of product reviews on Capterra. In total, 32 products are listed, and interestingly Serv-U was not among them.Solarwinds uses a number of reviews on its Serv-U website claiming it’s the best solution. However, what it fails to tell you is that the research firm, Techvalidate, which they used to capture the reviews, was engaged in 2015.G2 Serv-U reviews Capterra Solarwinds reviewsServ-U Techvalidate researchConclusionsGiven both ours and Gartner’s definition of managed file transfer, in my opinion, Serv-U is not MFT. It doesn’t have the requisite basic features and has largely remained the same since it was acquired from the previous vendor in 2012.If you’re looking for a no-frills, file transfer server, and don’t need a modern interface and the use of a Java applet is acceptable to you and your business partners, then you can still include Serv-U in your shortlist. For most organisations though, for most, that isn’t practical.Serv-U MFT AlternativesServ-U is inexpensive in managed file transfer software terms, but the implication of implementing it might cost significantly more further down the road.As the independent experts, our team can help you determine which features you’ll need, both now and into the future, based on the challenges you’re likely to experience. Additionally, we’re

On to the next step of the business process, push files to external suppliers systems, push to cloud storage or SaaS platforms, all the time extending and centralising file transfer activities and governance. Serv-U offers none of this. Serv-U has questionable quality controls in place to check the software code for security flaws. Personally, I’d give it a miss.If you're looking for alternatives to Serv-U, Pro2col have more experience in a wider range of file transfer solutions than any other consultancy. Our technical experts are uniquely placed to help you choose, and implement, a secure file transfer solution that will transform your business capabilities. We offer a range of services, including file transfer consultancy, managed services, hosting, and training packages. Get in touch with us to discuss the best SERV-U alternatives.Previous Solarwinds Serv-U MFT server review, September 2023Serv-U has continued to pop up on my Google Alerts radar over the past two years, since my previous review in July 2021.In my post below I bemoaned the lack of a modern HTML5 web interface for drag and drop of files into the web browser, something that most other file transfer solutions had benefited from for years. SolarWinds added this feature in version 15.3 some six short months after my review, in January 2022, maybe they were listening, who knows. The UI was the only change though, all other improvements were as a consequence to the move from Java.However, development has been somewhat limited since with most of the focus to make the new web interface stable and fixing bugs.There have been another four CVE’s, or publicly disclosed security flaws since my last report. This now brings their total to sixty five listings for Serv-U on the CVE database since the product was first launched. To put this into context, this is more than double all of our core vendors products combined. There is a marked increase in them following the purchase of Serv-U from Rhinosoft, the original software vendor. In my opinion it shows a wilful disregard for their customers security, poorly tested software effectively being beta tested on Serv-U customers environments.I’ve said it before and I will continue to bang this drum, Serv-U whilst cheap is not a credible file transfer solution. In using it within your business you are putting your data, your customers data and your trading partners data at risk.If you have Serv-U and would like to move, speak to our team. We have a complete range of services to include helping you find the right alternative for your budget, including helping you migrate your trading partners to the selected platform.Previous Solarwinds Serv-U MFT server review, July 2021The latest SolarWinds security vulnerability finds the much maligned Serv-U product line under the spotlight. Microsoft discovered the vulnerabilities and reported them privately, explains SolarWinds in its published advisory notice.James Lewis, Managing Director of Pro2col commented, “Pro2col has helped many users to migrate off the SolarWinds Serv-U product line, largely due to the lack of support and product development. Personally,