Aspera accelerates delivery of digital content

Aspera product, using a proprietary protocol, speeds big-file delivery

Developments of the week in storage

If you have large amounts of digital content to distribute Aspera Software has a solution. Aspera's niche is bulk data transfers, it has a product that speeds big-file delivery.

The company uses a proprietary transport protocol called FASP that is faster than FTP over TCP/IP and Forward Error Correction technologies over the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) to improve not only latency but throughput. FASP is implemented as an application layer protocol that installs as an application on the file transfer endpoints.

FASP is a patent pending technology that Microsoft has included in its Microsoft Interactive Media Manager software, which allows for a Web-based workflow in SharePoint Server 2000 environments. Isilon Systems also incorporates Aspera’s FASP technology to facilitate high-performance content delivery.

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If you have large amounts of digital content to distribute Aspera Software has a solution. Aspera's niche is bulk data transfers, it has a product that speeds big-file delivery.

The company uses a proprietary transport protocol called FASP that is faster than FTP over TCP/IP and Forward Error Correction technologies over the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) to improve not only latency but throughput. FASP is implemented as an application layer protocol that installs as an application on the file transfer endpoints.

FASP is a patent pending technology that Microsoft has included in its Microsoft Interactive Media Manager software, which allows for a Web-based workflow in SharePoint Server 2000 environments. Isilon Systems also incorporates Aspera’s FASP technology to facilitate high-performance content delivery.

Aspera’s technology can be implemented in a variety of ways: as a bi-directional file transfer between remote or local computers; as a file server-based technology in which a centralized Aspera server provides files transfers to Aspera clients; as a consolidated server where local file servers are replaced with an Aspera server; or in person to person file transfers.

Aspera was founded in 2004 by president and CEO Michelle Munson and vice president of engineering Sherban Simu. Munson is formerly from IBM; Simu was with Cisco. The company is self-funded and counts as customers Warner Brothers and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The company claims 460 enterprise customers.

Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW and host of both the Masters of Storage and Masters of Servers Solution Centers.