FastSoft technology speeds downloads for Getty Images

The Getty Images organization relies on the Internet to distribute increasingly large media files and needed a non-intrusive way to speed up the transfers so end users didn't wait for them any longer than they had to.

The company had looked at several alternatives but chose one that required no client software and minimal changes on the server side yet still cuts download times by more than 80% in some cases, says Katey Schuyler, senior manager, media management systems for Getty Images.

The company considered Akamai’s Web acceleration service, as well as software and hardware from Aspera, FastSoft, Radiance, and Signiant.

All accelerated traffic, but FastSoft had the edge, Schuyler says. “We tested all of those and saw performance gains in just about all of them, and the best gains came from Fastsoft, It was as good or better than everything else," she says. However that wasn't the determining factor. "It was really the ease of install for Fastsoft that was the clincher for us.”

In particular, FastSoft requires adding one of its Aria appliance in each of Getty Images’ data centers with no software changes to machines making the downloads, she says. The Fastsoft boxes are connected to WAN routers that use policy based routing to determine by IP address what traffic is accelerated.

Getty Images sells two services, both of which involve hosting content for customers that is then downloaded directly to the customers’ customers. Each Getty Images customer could have hundreds or thousands of customers of their own, so distributing client software was not an option, she says.

Other vendors either required a client-side install or required code changes [to Getty Images' software] or installing vendor software on multiple servers [in Getty Image's data center],” she says.

Performance increases were dramatic after the FastSoft gear was installed in September. A 1G file downloaded from a Getty Images data center in London to Tokyo went from 75 minutes before to 13 minutes with Fastsoft installed. Download time from London to Los Angeles went from 49 minutes to 15 minutes, Schuyler says.

FastSoft uses FastTCP technology to accelerate traffic. It does this by adjusting the sending rate of TCP packets to the rate links can support, overcoming TCP throttling back transmission rates when acknowledgment packets return too slowly.

FastTCP uses algorithms that measure the round-trip time it takes from when a packet is sent until its acknowledgement is received. It uses that information to deduce the maximum sending rate that the link can support. It then adjusts the sending rate accordingly. FastTCP interoperates with normal TCP.

Schuyler says the improved speeds have impressed Getty Images’ customers, but perhaps not the customers’ customers who are the end users. "It's one of those things I don't think people are cognizant of unless it's, 'Why is this taking so long?'" she says.