Home / server / Questions / 59538
Accepted
Kyle
Asked: 2009-08-28 05:35:26 +0800 CST

Connect Direct vs. sFTP?

  • 772

I have a partner who would like us to use a commercial product called Connect Direct where we would normally use ssh based scp or sftp. Besides reading their website, which is of course not quite impartial, is there any material (or do any of you have any opinions or info) on why this software is better than cron (or at) and scp scripting?

ssh open-source

4 Answers

  1. Having used Connect Direct, I would say avoid it if you can.
    My reasons are:

    • Is very hard to set up (it took our infrastructure team a year)
    • There is a massive learning curve to the application, no one here really understands it still
    • We haven't found it any more reliable than psftp and a cron job.

    On its plus sides:

    • Banks seem to love it
    • When it works it guarantees that the file is sent and received and you can be quite sure that the communication is secure.
    • 9
  2. Best Answer

    Wikipedia has some nice information at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NDM.

    From what I can ascertain with a bit of searching, it was built to guarantee stability with arguably less of a compromise in speed than similarly flexible solutions.

    • 7

  3. Sometimes you've got to ditch mainframe era technology, even if it used to be top-notch and cost an arm and a leg. From the description I fail to see what Direct:Connect provides that isn't matched or outclassed by scripted rsync, ssh, or even (depending on your needs) tar.

    • 4

  4. My biggest concern with Connect:Direct is how unnecessarily complex it is. That it is costly and outdated is another issue. And that it is closed source and doesn't have the industry support, eyeballs and testing that OpenSSH is still another issue. My key concern with CD is that it violates one of the most fundamental security concerns - that "complexity is the enemy of security." You can be complex or you can be secure but you can't be both. From a high level, I feel that Connect:Direct is insecure through its own complexity. I can only assume that there are many other security blunders under the hood - being closed source and barely used makes it easy to hide or ignore other types of security problems. I would not have faith in this product. I'm not happy at all that I've had to use it.

    • 4