Why did Research Data Services choose SSH? Please see the access guide for your operating system ( Windows, Mac OS X and Linux) for more information.
No, there are many very good programs with graphical interfaces such as WinSCP for Windows and Cyberduck for Mac OS X. SSH clients will typically support SCP ( Secure Copy) and/or SFTP ( SSH File Transfer Protocol) for transferring data we tend to recommend using SFTP instead of SCP but both will work with our service. There are many programs available that enable you to perform this transfer and some operating systems such as Mac OS X and Linux have this capability built in. You use a program on your computer (ssh client), to connect to our service (server) and transfer the data to/from our storage using either a graphical user interface or command line. SSH is often used to 'login' and perform operations on remote computers but it may also be used for transferring data. An inherent feature of ssh is that the communication between the two computers is encrypted meaning that it is suitable for use on insecure networks.
SSH or Secure Shell is a network communication protocol that enables two computers to communicate (c.f http or hypertext transfer protocol, which is the protocol used to transfer hypertext such as web pages) and share data.
