The main function of openFT is to transfer files between two partner systems. To do this, you must issue a file transfer request in the local system. This request can be used either to send a file to a remote system or to fetch a file from a remote system to the local system. A partner system can also send files to your local system or fetch one from your local system.
Requests issued from your local system are referred to as outbound requests . Requests issued from the remote system are referred to as inbound requests.
In a file transfer request, you can specify whether the file to be transferred is a text file or whether it contains unstructured or structured binary data. This determines the handling of the data during transmission; see the section “File conversion”. The so-called “transparent” file format plays a special role here: you can use this format to store BS2000 files with all their properties in the receive system without conversion. This is necessary, for example, when a Unix or Windows system is used to distributed BS2000 software.
On Unix and Windows systems, it is also possible to send a complete directory to a partner system using a single request.
Preprocessing, postprocessing and/or follow-up processing can be agreed for all file transfer requests to openFT partners. You may specify follow-up processing for successful and failed transfers both in the local system and in the remote system. For details of how to use the preprocessing. postprocessing and follow-up processing features, see the section “File transfer with preprocessing, postprocessing and follow-up processing”.
You should not process a file further until transfer is completed; otherwise, inconsistencies may result. On BS2000, DMS files are protected during the entire execution of the request.
You may decide when openFT is to carry out your transfer request. Either immediately or at a particular time which you can specify. openFT always performs a synchronous request immediately. If a request is to be performed later, you must start an asynchronous request and specify the time of its execution.
Compressed transfer
When issuing a request, you may specify whether the file is to be transferred in a compressed form and the type of compression that is to be used (byte compression or zip compression).
Data compression can be used to:
shorten transmission times
reduce the load on the transmission paths and
reduce data transmission costs.