Problem

Over the past year, new use cases, performance challenges, and many one-on-one conversations with SecureTransport customers provided valuable insights into how the Usage Reporting feature behaves across various platforms and customers. We recognize the need to enhance the mechanisms in line with our commitment to delivering secure, high-performance, and reliable software. As old and new mechanisms might raise questions and the need for clarification on how the product works, this Knowledge Base article aims to explain the new usage reporting mechanism in SecureTransport.

Resolution

SecureTransport 5.5-20250227 introduces a new mechanism for measuring usage accurately and simultaneously, covering new workflows. Additionally, it includes a redesigned page in the Admin UI for configuring and monitoring usage.

The current support for managing files via external storage solutions and the planned home folder for User Accounts support for S3 unlocks powerful integrations. These integrations are now considered in the Usage Reporting mechanism, ensuring accurate transfer counting.

The known metrics ST.TransfersIn, ST.TransfersOut, ST.Volume, and ST.ActiveUsers remain the same, and we introduce a new one named ST.Transfers. The new metric will automatically align with the number of File Transfer entitlements.

The following is an outline of the new mechanism's basics:

UsageReporting service is created

• On TM start-up, a new service UsageReporting is started.

• The service is responsible for updating the Usage Reporting metrics every second.

• The frequency is managed by the Server Configuration Option UsageReporting.pollInterval.

Put and remove a tag

• To avoid counting the same file twice, outbound files with a "tag" are not counted.

• An inbound file (Upload or Pull) receives a tag, and the ST.Transfers count is increased by 1.

• The first outbound of a file (Download or Push) removes the tag and the ST.Transfers count is not modified.

• Any consecutive outbound of that file increases the ST.Transfers count.

Work with archives

• When an archive is decompressed, one of its files inherits the tag status. All others are created without a tag.

• When files are compressed, the archive receives a tag if at least one of the files within the archive already is tagged.

Update of ST.Transfers

• When a tagged file leaves SecureTransport, the ST.Transfers it not increased.

• When a non-tagged file leaves SecureTransport, the ST.Transfers is increased.

Examples

An Upload-and-Push scenario

A Decompress scenario

A Compress scenario

For more information, check the Admin Guide section Set up usage reporting.