Akamai accelerates content availability with Aspera high-speed file transfer

This solution simplifies the rapid transfer of large, high-quality files for cloud-based workflows.

Akamai Technologies y rough, a subsidiary of IBM, announced at NAB 2014 a new high-speed option for Akamai customers to accelerate the loading and delivery of rich media content on the Akamai Intelligent Platform. The Aspera Upload Acceleration option integrates Aspera's proven transfer technology directly into Akamai's NetStorage cloud-based online storage platform, offering Akamai customers a significantly faster way to upload files regardless of file size or geographic distance.

Seung Bak, founder and co-CEO of DramaFever, acknowledges that "with a library that exceeds 14,000 titles and content from 70 partners around the world, it is crucial for us to be able to populate our service with new programs as quickly and efficiently as possible without sacrificing quality. Since we have added Aspera Load Acceleration to the Akamai storage platform, our loading speed has improved substantially and we are realizing new efficiencies in our content workflow."

The integration of Aspera's proprietary FASP software into Akamai's NetStorage is designed to significantly increase load transfer speeds while creating a seamless end-user experience without the need to redesign the workflow or build custom API calls. By mitigating delays caused by distance and packet loss between the upload point and cloud storage, customers can achieve processing capacity several times greater than that of traditional transfer protocols. The performance achieved reduces the time required to make time-sensitive content, high-quality video files, and large content libraries available for delivery through the Akamai Intelligent Platform.

Michael Fay, vice president of Multimedia Products and Operations at Akamai, highlights that "the tight integration between Aspera and Akamai creates a complete system that makes it as easy as possible for users to upload their upload capabilities. With this technology integration, content can be accelerated throughout Akamai's cloud-based workflow without regard to geographic distances or packet loss, thus allowing users to publish their content faster than ever."

Akamai NetStorage is a secure, geographically distributed cloud storage service that is designed to help customers reduce the cost, complexity and risk associated with maintaining a managed storage data center. Content uploaded to NetStorage is automatically replicated and stored in multiple geographically distributed locations. When content is requested, the Akamai Intelligent Platform delivers it from a location dynamically selected to deliver the best performance. This geographic separation also offers reliability for regional outages, congestion and natural disasters, maximizing content availability. The addition of Aspera's high-performance digital transport capability improves NetStorage-based workflow by dramatically speeding up file uploads to the platform.