HostedFTP Case Study

With an innovative file sharing solution, HostedFTP.com, a Toronto-based company, is positioning themselves to become the key File Transfer Protocol (FTP) replacement solution for businesses.

Managing FTP servers creates a number of issues for businesses and their IT teams, notably network security, user access management, and significant hardware and software costs. For end users, FTP offers no email notifications, no version control, and imposes software requirements. HostedFTP.com solves these issues by providing an easy, secure way for businesses to share files and replace FTP servers.

To host their web-based file sharing system, HostedFTP.com was originally housed in several co-location facilities before moving onto Amazon Web Services. “Our infrastructure is now 100% hosted with Amazon Web Services,” says Daniel Frank, President of HostedFTP.com. “Our transition to AWS was painless; in fact we were able to complete our move in just under a month including all testing.”

“As a file sharing solution we need to deliver on our promise to customers in terms of security and reliability. Once customers learn our infrastructure is hosted in its entirety by Amazon.com, which has a proven track record, we can focus on why HostedFTP.com is the right file sharing solution for their business. In addition to this, the pay as you go nature of AWS allows us to pass along cost savings to our customers.”

HostedFTP.com currently uses Amazon S3 to store customer files and Amazon EC2 to host their website and database. In addition, they use Amazon EC2’s EBS (Elastic Block Store) to manage their codebase. This system allows them to quickly deploy new versions of their software with zero downtime and without having to create new EC2 machine images.

Frank continues, “We have enjoyed significant cost savings through the reduction of hardware and network administration. The ability to quickly launch multiple EC2 instances has allowed us to reduce the time it takes to test and deploy our application by 40%.”

“In addition, our reseller program takes full advantage of the infinite scalability of EC2. We can offer our resellers a 100% white-label solution that they can manage for their customers on their own EC2 instance. This allows us to provide resellers with their own secure domain name and the ability to manage and grow their customer base along with us.

“For a file sharing business such as ours to have no hardware to manage is a huge competitive advantage, allowing us to focus on our product instead of infrastructure concerns. We have peace of mind knowing the infrastructure that we have in place today will meet the needs of our business as it grows.”