What is the purpose of FTP in Manufacturing?

alive15

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Oct 2015
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Good afternoon,

After some google search, I found online that FTP or SFTP allows users to share documents, download files, store files, etc. and is somewhat popular in manufacturing industry.

My question is why use something like this versus using applications such as Google Drive or Dropbox to share and store documents and data? I always see FTP everywhere, but I did not find a purpose to use this myself when I have access to Dropbox and Google Drive.

It's very naive question, but I want to know why people are using this today and what advantages FTP carries over other cloud based storage applications?

I also don't see how I can use FTP at my work with PLCs and HMIs/ I have a C-more panel from Automation Direct that has an FTP option, but unsure what all I can do with this?

This is strictly a general knowledge question.

Thanks!
 
Hello,

I have customers that generate reports at a fixed interval and FTP the report to internal company servers.

I know another customer that generates reports and uses FTP to send to a printer.
 
It's a bit like iIOT, do you really want your (potentially sensitive) data stored on someone else's cloud?


Also, scanners such as cognex and keyence can store image results via FTP.
 
FTP is simple and efficient and can be handled all within a company LAN. Red Lion HMIs support FTP for storage and retrieval of logged data and that is how I most often use it.
 
You can create a computer program that uses FTP to send and receive files automatically. Dropbox is more for sharing files with other people. FTP could be used to automate the sending/receiving of files to a machine, shared folder, or to another person.
 
Do you want your C-More HMI or control system connected to the Internet so you can upload files to Google Drive? No.

Do you want to push files via FTP to an internal company server behind a firewall for data logging and reporting? Maybe.
 
I believe FTP has been around for a very long time.
Long before Google Drive or DropBox type thingies were ever dreamed of.

But the other reasons listed above are very good ones. With FTP and a serious
firewall one can keep the riff raff from playing silly games with ones data.
Poet.
 
I have customers that use FTP and a Graceport Ethernet setup near the HMI on a machine to plug a laptop into and suck the DataStore Plus log data from a Panelview down onto their laptop.
 
Good afternoon,


It's very naive question, but I want to know why people are using this today and what advantages FTP carries over other cloud based storage applications?

FTP is a file transfer protocol. It is a method your computer can use to transfer data over a network to a storage application, an FTP server. The FTP server could be on a local network, or something remote. Why do they use it today? The same reasons they have been using it for 50 years!
 
FTP is a file transfer protocol. It is a method your computer can use to transfer data over a network to a storage application, an FTP server. The FTP server could be on a local network, or something remote. Why do they use it today? The same reasons they have been using it for 50 years!

+1
Just use it when you want to transfer files
 
You can create a computer program that uses FTP to send and receive files automatically. Dropbox is more for sharing files with other people. FTP could be used to automate the sending/receiving of files to a machine, shared folder, or to another person.

Thank you everyone for your replies, I got some good info. from here as usual. I like HawkME's answer, it sums it up pretty well and easy for me to understand. Thanks again everyone.

Feel free to post any more good info. about FTPs, I would like to use this once I find a good use for it at work. I'm sure there are some good guides online. I'll plan to log some data off my HMIs just to practice and try it out and we'll see how it goes from there!
 
I believe FTP has been around for a very long time.
Long before Google Drive or DropBox type thingies were ever dreamed of.
Is 1971 a long time ago?

It is old, but it still works. If you don't want to go through a third party it's not bad. It's not really secure but communications only takes place between the client and server and isn't sent to the 'cloud' i.e. someone else's computer.

The utility I see is the ability to use something that is built in and doesn't require installing yet another piece of software. Plus things like Dropbox might not play well with others. Have you seen how many connections Dropbox tries to make? I've seen more dropbox traffic in wireshark than actual PLC and automation traffic on some networks.
 
Main advantage (besides it simplicity) for FTP is that you do not need to be connected to the internet.


Many PLC and HMI devices also allow one to retrieve data using FTP.
 

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