Buy vs. Build - FTP Service

Question

We have a need to FTP files that are generated by our system, so we're trying to decide whether we should spend the time to build something that meets our criteria (relatively easy, .NET has FTP functionality built in, among other more advanced libs from 3rd parties). Or if we should buy something off the shelf.

Our requirements are roughly:

• Must be able to trigger a file send programmatically
• Needs to retry N number of times (configurable)
• Queryable status of FTP requests
• Callback on completion or fail of an FTP request

I don't need to be sold on the relative simplicity of building something like that for myself. However I do want to do the due diligence of seeing what products are available ... because if something does exist that matches the requirements above, I wouldn't mind paying for it.

Answer 1

A great comment I saw one time was "If it’s a core business function — do it yourself, no matter what.” by Joel Spolsky, when deciding either buy or outsource. If it is then you should build it so you have total control, if not then buy or outsource is an option.

This sounds like the latter.

Answer 2

SyncBackPro would handle most of that, except I think the queryable status of FTP requests.

We used to use it, but replaced it with custom code to have more control over reporting of activity. Also, it seemed to eat a lot of CPU.

If you are creating something, I would recommend Rebex FTP. It is simpler to use than the built in .Net classes, and also has more functionality. Rebex has been rock solid for us in production.

Answer 3

For something simple like that, building it yourself shouldnt take too long - perhaps not much longer than integrating a 3rd party library into your app. After all, there's already FTP support available to you, as you mention. Plus it removes the dependency on a third party library (which may/may not be an issue for your project).