Protecting sensitive data in the Axway Cloud
Founded in 1923 and headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Textron is a multi-industry company with a global network of aerospace, defense and intelligence, industrial, and financial businesses. Textron employs 34,000 people, including engineers, designers, mechanics and a wide range of other experts in 25 countries worldwide.
Huge volumes of data underpin Textron’s operations, from design workflows to manufacturing processes on the factory floor. To keep these core activities running smoothly, the company sends and receives over 20,000 files, ranging in size from 100 KB to 10 GB, during a typical workday using managed file transfer (MFT) capabilities.
Al Gutierrez, IT Senior Architect at Textron, says: “We work closely with defense organizations, so it’s crucial for us to encrypt their data at rest and in flight. Over the last decade, cyber threats have evolved dramatically — and to minimize our attack surface, we must remediate vulnerabilities in our MFT landscape rapidly and effectively.”
For many years, Textron has relied on Axway MFT solutions to support its mission-critical B2B integration processes. Previously, the company leveraged an on-premises deployment of Axway SecureTransport to meet its demanding file transfer requirements. As Textron’s information security requirements grew, the company looked for a more efficient way to ensure its MFT landscape was always protected from cyber threats.
Matt Miller, IT Business Analyst at Textron, continues: “Over time, we found that we were spending more and more of our time remediating vulnerabilities and firefighting security threats such as DDoS attacks and invalid login requests. We wanted to spend less time on management and maintenance tasks and more time supporting the business.”
Boosting efficiency in the cloud
Textron decided to move its proven SecureTransport solution to Axway Managed Cloud Services for MFT: a fully managed service backed by the technical expertise of a world-class support team.
“When we evaluated Axway Managed Cloud Services for MFT, the benefits were clear,” says Gutierrez. “By moving our MFT capabilities to the cloud, we knew we would eliminate the manual work associated with our on-premises platform.”
Miller adds: “Early in the selection process, we spoke with several organizations who had moved their MFT service to the Axway Cloud. The feedback was very positive, and listening to the experiences of other companies that had gone through the migration process was valuable in shaping our own IT risk assessment.”
Delivering high security
Working with Axway, Textron carefully planned its cloud migration. By configuring a virtual private network (VPN) tunnel to connect its back-end systems with SecureTransport, the company can ensure rock-solid security for its most sensitive MFT use cases.
“Axway helped us to coordinate with our partners, vendors and data-owners to ensure application of the appropriate configurations and firewall rules,” recalls Miller. “We adopted a phased approach, moving 110 MFT accounts to the cloud in waves over seven months. At the same time, we took the opportunity to modernize our MFT capabilities by implementing the Secure Shell Protocol [SSH] wherever possible. After a month of fine-tuning, we were ready to decommission the on-premises platform.”
Saving time, enhancing services
Today, Textron uses Axway Managed Cloud Services for MFT to support more than six million MFT transactions a year. By embracing managed services in the cloud, the organization gains 24/7 tracking for every file transfer, with automated alerts for delivery failures and responsive technical support available around the clock.
In the move to Axway Managed Cloud Services for MFT, Textron also decided to take advantage of Axway Sentinel — a real-time, event-driven monitoring solution that delivers clear visibility into all data flows.
“With Sentinel, it’s easier than ever for us to monitor our compliance with stringent information security requirements,” says Miller. “For example, we have a Sentinel report to track certificates that are nearing expiry, which helps us ensure we’re always following the latest security standards.”
Gutierrez concludes: “As soon as we moved to Axway Managed Cloud Services for MFT, we finally got our weekends back! We no longer need to spend our days and nights remediating vulnerabilities and firefighting technical issues — with the Axway Cloud, we can focus on delivering value-added services to the business.”
