Aspera’s breakthrough fasp^TM transfer technology greatly outperforms the traditional TCP-based transfer tools like FTP/HTTP by fully utilizing the available bandwidth, whether over WAN, wireless or satellite connection. Depending on network conditions, fasp achieves speeds that are up to hundreds of times faster than TCP. The worse the network conditions (i.e. higher latency and higher packet loss), the bigger fasp’s advantage becomes, due to its insensitivity to these factors.

The benchmarks in this section document fasp advantages by running transfer speed measurements on real-world networks, using a variety of conditions and data sizes. The benefits of this breakthrough performance are not only faster transfer times, but also reliability, precise bandwidth utilization control, and predictable transfer times.

The following graphs compare throughput and transfer time for fasp™ file transfers and FTP file transfers in typical network scenarios. All fasp™ and FTP benchmarks are for file transfer tests run within the Aspera labs. In each test, a 1-gigabyte file was transferred between commodity Pentium-4 computers running Debian Linux, using a standard Debian Linux implementation of FTP and Aspera scp for fasp™ file transfer. A nistnet network emulator was used to simulate network round-trip latency and packet loss conditions typical on the Internet. Actual FTP throughputs will depend on the particular implementation of FTP used, the operating system, and the particular network loss pattern, but the results shown are typical.

fasp™ Performance Breakthrough

 TCP transfer times limited by packet loss, delay (network distance) NOT BANDWIDTH

Aspera transfer times shorten linearly with bandwidth
Independent of packet loss, delay (network distance)
Cross US: add 1 to 5% - Intercontinental: add 1 to 10% - Satellite: add 1 to 10%

* Assumes no storage bottleneck

fasp™ vs. FTP on gigabit metropolitan and wide area networks

Conventional TCP file transfer technologies such as FTP dramatically reduce the data rate in response to any packet loss, and cannot maintain long-term throughputs at the capacity of high-speed links.

The maximum theoretical throughput for TCP-based file transfer under metropolitan area network conditions (0.1% packet loss and 10 ms RTT) is 50 megabits per second (Mbps), regardless of bandwidth. The effective FTP throughput is even less (22 Mbps). In contrast, fasp™ achieves 100% utilization of high-speed links with a single transfer stream.

In the particular test shown, the fasp™ throughput on a gigabit Ethernet MAN (509 Mbps) presses the disk read/write speed limits of the endpoint computers. Perhaps more important, fasp™ maintains this throughput even as latency and packet loss increase (505 Mbps at 200 ms/2%). FTP throughput degrades to about 550 Kbps under the same conditions. While this 1000X speed advantage over traditional TCP transfers is only evident on the fastest long-haul networks, it illustrates the difference in the fasp™ approach.

fasp™ vs. FTP on cross-continental links

Aspera fasp™ sustains the highest possible end-to-end file transfer rates on cross-continental and intercontinental file transfers where latencies are high and packet loss is variable. An FTP file transfer from LA to New York (90 ms RTT) will achieve 5-6 Mbps when loss is low (0.1% packet loss). As congestion on the link increases to 1% packet loss, FTP dramatically reduces its rate to 1.4 Mbps. In contrast, fasp™ transfers data at full capacity. On a 155 Mbps link with 90 ms/1%, fasp™ transfers at 154 Mbps, 100 times faster than FTP. Using a more typical 45 Mbps link, the transfer is still 30 times faster than FTP.

fasp™ vs. FTP on intercontinental links

The throughput advantage of fasp™ over FTP is more pronounced on an intercontinental transfer. At a packet loss rate of 2% and latency of 150ms, an FTP file transfer between continents runs at 700 kbps, and can drop to a crawl during periods of high congestion. In contrast, fasp™ maintains stable throughput at link capacity in around-the-world file transfers. Using fasp™ file transport, a 1-gigabyte data transfer on a 10 Mbps link at 2% loss will run consistently at 9.9 Mbps, and finish in under 15 minutes, regardless of distance. On a 45 Mbps link, the transfer finishes in 3.3 minutes. An FTP transfer under the same conditions takes several hours, and may terminate prematurely.

fasp™ over high-delay satellite links

The high latency and bit error rates of satellite links severely hamper FTP file transfers, making large data set distribution or file upload over satellite impractical. fasp™ file transfer rates are immune to the distance and loss characteristic of single and multiple satellite hops.

For example, a single fasp™ file transfer can fill a full transponder bandwidth (e.g. 45 Mbps) and will gracefully tolerate even the most extreme packet loss (over 30%), while FTP runs at 100 kbps or less and may not complete.

The Aspera Mobile platform provides a toolkit for developing remote upload/download mobile content acquisition and distribution solutions.  Aspera Mobile is designed for scenarios where content must be securely and predictably acquired, across any network, from any place in the world.  At the heart of Aspera Mobile is the patented, high-speed, location-agnostic fasp transport technology, which is available for iOS, Android, Mac OSX, Windows 7 and other mobile operating systems.  A range of devices such as laptops, tablets and smart phones can be used to reliably upload content in support of meeting deadlines over unreliable or congested networks. A simple, lightweight Aspera client application is installed on the devices and provides an intuitive interface to initiate and manage high-speed file transfers.

On the server side, the Aspera Mobile platform integrates with commercial and ad hoc content management workflows and provides a single point of management (via Aspera Console web application) for uploads and distribution.

Rapid Individual and Concurrent Upload/Download Speed

Aspera fasp-AIR, the core transport used in Aspera Mobile, overcomes the network latency and packet loss often found in the most challenging mobile upload/download scenarios.  Using Aspera, transfer speeds are agnostic to most network conditions—and depend purely on the available bandwidth. As bandwidth increases, overall transfer speed increases.  Compared to TCP, performance gains are greatest on networks with the worst latency.

On fixed or mobile satellite networks, it is common to see 100x performance gains over TCP.  Using 3G, performance gains up to 3x faster than FTP can be achieved, especially in download scenarios. The chart below depicts modest increases in upload speed and considerable increases in download speed over TCP. The spiked download statistics in blue describe full bandwidth utilization during variable daytime usage hours over 3G.

Figure 1:  3G Upload and Download Comparisons - TCP vs. Aspera fasp-AIR

As bandwidth increases using 4G, Aspera fasp-AIR achieves higher performance.  Using 4G, considerable upload and download performance is achieved.   The following sample tests were performed over Verizon 4G (LTE) in Emeryville, CA.  In some cases (highlighted in orange below), speeds will vary greatly, depending on available bandwidth and the underlying condition of the wireless network.

Figure 2: TCP vs. Aspera fasp-AIR comparisons over 4G (Upload and Download)

Multi-hop transfer performance

Performance in the following tests measured performance across the second hop to simulate real-world mobile upload/download scenarios.  Wi-Fi networks are fast within the local air network, from the device to the gateway or first hop. On this local loop, bandwidth is usually higher and latency relatively low.  In real-world, end-to-end scenarios, however, files must transfer across multiple hops, at variable speeds and conditions over distance.

On Wi-Fi (802.11) networks uplinked to long-haul WANs, Aspera performance increases from 10 to 100x over TCP can be seen depending on the underlying network and uplink speeds.  See tables below for Wi-Fi uplink comparisons of TCP vs. Aspera fasp-AIR.

TCP vs. Aspera fasp-Air Performance on WiFi (802.11n Single Band)- Excellent Local Signal Strength

TCP vs. Aspera fasp-Air Performance on WiFi (802.11n Dual Band)- Excellent Local Signal Strength

Aspera performed a set of tests to baseline performance of Aspera Sync compared to rsync.  The tests provided the following:

• Reproducing real-world WAN conditions—with 100mls delays and 1% packet loss over a 1Gbps link.
• Small files:  measuring the performance and results of replicating many small files—into the millions.
• Large files:  measuring the performance and results of replicating large files—into terabytes.
• Time: measuring how long it takes to perform both small and large file replication scenarios.
• Throughput: measuring the overall throughput utilized during the replication job.
• Change replication: changing a fraction (10%) of the files in the data set and measuring the time and throughput to replicate the changes.

First Run

Performance comparison synchronizing many small files (average size 100KB) over WAN of 100ms/1%

Performance comparison synchronizing many large files (average size 100MB) over WAN of 100ms/1%

Second Run

Synchronization time after adding 31,056 files to 1 million small files (100 KB each) over WAN of 100ms/1%

Synchronization time after adding new files to set of large files (100 MB) over WAN of 100ms/1%

Metro Area Network

delay: 10ms; loss: 0.1%

High Speed WAN

delay: 200ms; loss: 2%

Coast-to-Coast

delay: 90ms; loss: 1%

Intercontinental

delay: 150ms; loss: 2%

Satellite

delay: 550ms; loss: 5%

* Assumes no storage bottleneck