Continental Automotive Drives its Business Efficiency with Progress® MOVEit® Solutions

The Automotive Group of Continental is one of the leading global automotive suppliers, employing over 87,000 people. Continental Automotive has been using Progress MOVEit managed file transfer solution since 2010.

The Challenge

“We needed a fast, secure and easy method to exchange an ever-growing number of larger files,” said Christopher John Muller, Head of A IT EA DX P at Continental. Continental also needed to automate some recurring tasks like archiving and deleting messages by setting up scripts, which were timeconsuming to maintain and it was a challenge to control the decentralized workflows of the customers and partners. “Creating a data exchange relationship before being able to send files takes some time, requires documentation and approval, and creates entities like accounts that stay in the system for a minimum of one year,” Muller explained. “This process takes too much time for these transfers that often only occur just once. Tools exist to handle these unique exchanges but are limited.”

The Solution

Facing these challenges, Continental evaluated several solutions, ran proof of concepts in house and the Progress MOVEit solution was the clear winner. Since then, the company uses an enterprise solution consisting of MOVEit Transfer for secure, managed file transfer, MOVEit Automation for automated and streamlined workflows and the MOVEit EZ client. The MOVEit solution is designed for enterprise workflow and security with an unlimited number of of tasks, clients and shared data as well as failover and API to thirdparty-modules. The IT staff easily adopted the management and the administration of the intuitive processes; support was needed only a few times during the integration process. The solution does not require any external security resources for the implementation, as MOVEit is engineered from the ground up for the highly secure enterprise level. End-to-end encryption is one hundred percent built in; no third-party encryption is needed.

Additional Features to MOVEit Transfer

Continental also uses MOVEit solution optional modules including external authentication, AP-interface and secure messaging. Utilizing external authentication on MOVEit Transfer the company is able to authenticate its users against any combination of LDAP, Secure LDAP, RADIUS Server and ODBC-accessible databases. The API enables third-party programs to control data processes and file transfers.
With the secure messaging tool users exchange messages and attached files safely. The users are authorized for the MOVEit Transfer server and transfer the messages via web browser clients.

Run on Virtual Servers

Continental runs both MOVEit Transfer and MOVEit Automation VMware. The MOVEit products are installed in DMZ behind two load balancers. In this way the reliability of the whole Managed File Transfer system amounts to 99.6 percent. The easy to install and administer MOVEit EZ client runs in the customers’ networks. The users’ MOVEit accounts allow them to easily manage folders and rights themselves. Parts of the rights settings are administrated and pre-set by the IT staff. The solution is completely integrated into the business application process; a virtual share can be applied or managed just like a physical share on the PC.

Secure File Transfer in the Application Hosting Environment (AHE)

With MOVEit Automation, Continental is able to provide an extra service for secure exchange within their Application Hosting Environment. “The platform allows our partners to work from anywhere in the world,” said Muller. “The Application Hosting Environment provides them access to all necessary tools, that way they and we stay fully integrated into projects and processes.” The MOVEit Automation ensures that the data that must be transferred to and from the AHE is documented and delivered to its destination safely.

Benefits

Continental has about two thousand internal and external users currently working with the Managed File Transfer system. Over a 150 tasks are defined with MOVEit Automation. In just a couple of months, the total of data transferred, downloaded or uploaded amounted to more than 300 GB. Since the setup Continental benefits from shipping binaries throughout multiple development locations. “The synchronization of data of multiple clients became so much easier than we experienced before,” said Muller. “We easily integrate customers and partners into our workflows and data exchange processes. We are able to exchange a large amount of data quickly and safely and at the same time we take the load off our e-mail servers. The whole process with partners and within the company is now less time-consuming, more efficient and less expensive. The integration into the management tool provided us with tremendous savings and unified the process for the end users.