Large File Download Benchmark White Paper

Transfer Time Benchmarks for Common File Downloads over Various Link Speeds With and Without FastSoft E Series Acceleration

W h i t e P a p er

Companies that depend on the transfer of large fileslike video and design fileslose valuable time and productivity waiting for data to download. FastSofts E Series is decreasing the file transfer wait time up to 30x with a one-sided acceleration product that does not require any hardware or software on the receiving end.

High S p e e d N e t wo r k s D o n t Deliver
A typical two-hour movie uses approximately 700MB of disk space and can take between 1 and 4 hours to transfer from Los Angeles to New York on a typical DSL/Cable Modem line (3Mbps) using the standard TCP protocol. Many companies try to shorten this transfer time by purchasing expensive high-bandwidth data lines. After all, the same 700MB file should take less than 10 minutes to transfer at Metro Ethernet (10Mbps) speeds. However, this is not the case: benchmark testing shows that a 700MB file can take between 67 minutes and 7 hours to transfer across the US on a Metro Ethernet connection, depending on Internet congestion. Clearly the theory is not translating into practice. Thats because the TCP protocol that governs 90 percent of Internet traffic is inherently flawed. This poor performance is due to the fact that the TCP protocol itself is inefficient when dealing with packet loss, long distances or high-speed networks. The congestion control mechanism of the standard TCP protocol was created years ago at a time when networks were far slower, smaller, and less heterogeneous. FastSoft has created a unique solution which addresses these limitations. Our E Series of Internet acceleration appliances offers extremely robust performance across a wide range of operating conditions. Using our product, a 700MB video file can be transmitted coast-to-coast in less than 40 minutes on a DSL/Cable modem and in less than 15 minutes on a Metro Ethernet connection. In addition, it can be transferred worldwide up to 30x faster when E Series is added to the senders network. Most importantly, the E Series is clientless, meaning that it can achieve significant performance gains without any additional hardware or software at the receiving end.
s e co n d s 12,000 10,800 9,600 8,400 7,200 6,000 4,800 3,600 33 min 53 sec 2,400 1,200 0 Wi t h o u t E S e ri e s Wi t h E S e ri e s 3 hr 7 min

7 0 0 M B D ow n l o a d L A to Lo n d o n ( 1 6 0 m s R T T, 1 % l o s s )

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W h i t e P a p er
Netwo r k S i m p l i c i t y
The FastSoft E Series resides at the senders site only, and does not require a typical two-box (dedicated sending and receiving) configuration. Additionally, it does not require any software modifications to the senders or receivers network infrastructure. Once installed, clients receive faster data transmissions automatically, and furthermore, the appliance is designed to make its transmissions interact gracefully with existing data flows, sharing the network capacity fairly with existing TCP and UDP traffic.
Mac End User

Internet FastSoft E Series Content Provider Firewall Router Linux End User

FastSoft E Series installed on the host network accelerates TCP traffic for all desired applications to all destinations

Windows End User

Cellular

s e co n d s

Benc h m a r k C o n f i g u r a t i o n
The benchmark results are drawn from tests both in our customers production networks and in our laboratory. For lab tests, the test bed consists of two servers connected through a WAN emulator to two client computers. All machines are either Windows 2003 Servers or Linux servers (kernel version 2.6) and run standard TCP. The WAN emulator can be configured with specified speed, latency, and packet loss rate. Both FTP and iPerf (a standard throughput measuring tool) have been used in our tests. The charts above compare results with and without the the FastSoft E Series appliance inserted between the sender and the WAN link.

30,000 27,000 24,000 21,000 18,000 15,000 12,000 9,000 6,000 3,000 0

7 hr 47 min

44 min 27 sec

Wi t h o u t E S e ri e s

Wi t h E S e ri e s

2 . 5 G B D ow n l o a d L A to H o n g Ko n g ( 2 6 0 m s R T T, 1 % l o s s )

150 S Lo s R o b l e s Ave, S u i te 7 5 0 | Pa s a d e n a , Ca 91101 | Phone: (626) 357-7012 | Fax: (626) 357-7017 | fastsof t.com

W h i t e P a p er
Benc h m a r k D a t a
The results of our end-to-end transfer of common files with and without the FastSoft E Series are as follows:
Source Destination Pipe Size (bits per second) 1Gbps 1Gbps 1Gbps 100Mbps 1Gbps 1Gbps 1Gbps 100Mbps 100Mbps 100Mbps 100Mbps 100Mbps 45Mbps T3 45Mbps T3 45Mbps T3 10Mbps Cable 3Mbps DSL 1.5Mbps DSL 1Mbps DSL 10Mbps Shared Ethernet 10Mbps Shared Ethernet 10Mbps Shared Ethernet 10Mbps Shared Ethernet 10Mbps Shared Ethernet File Size (bytes) 25GB 4.7GB 25GB 700MB 25GB 4.7GB 25GB 4.7GB 100MB 100MB 100MB 100MB 500MB 500MB 500MB 200MB 200MB 200MB 200MB 200MB 200MB 200MB 200MB 200MB File Type Transfer Time Before (minutes) 230 82 455 14 10 77 360 128 24 42 24 67 25 24 46 8 89 267 133 35 47 47 40 61 Transfer Time After (minutes) 12.5 5 22.5 1 2 3 27.5 9 2 3 3 2 4 4 4 3 12 24 30 9 10 10 7 7 Transfer Time Improvement 18.4x 16.4x 20.2x 14.0x 5.0x 25.7x 13.1x 14.2x 11.7x 15.5x 8.0x 27.2x 6.2x 5.7x 10.6x 2.5x 7.7x 11.0x 11.0x 4.0x 4.7x 4.7x 5.7x 8.6x

New York New York New York New York Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Connecticut Connecticut Connecticut Connecticut New York New York New York Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles Los Angeles

Boston San Francisco Los Angeles London San Francisco New York Boston London San Francisco Los Angeles New York London San Francisco Los Angeles London New York Taipei Shanghai Buenos Aries Tokyo Hong Kong Singapore Sydney Seoul

Blue Ray Disc DVD Disc Blue Ray Disc CD Disc Blue Ray Disc DVD Disc Blue Ray Disc DVD Disc High-Def Video High-Def Video High-Def Video High-Def Video Graphic Files Graphic Files Graphic Files Digital Dailies Digital Dailies Digital Dailies Digital Dailies Digital Dailies Digital Dailies Digital Dailies Digital Dailies Digital Dailies

About FastSoft
FastSoft (fastsoft.com) was launched in 2006 to bring the benefits of Internet acceleration technology to the media and entertainment industry and other enterprises that depend on the transfer of large files. FastSoft accelerates video up to 15x for long-distance production collaboration, digital delivery to customers, and superior broadband viewing in the home. Large files - including CAD, imaging, business information, and software can see an improvement of up to 30x faster. Unlike other acceleration solutions, FastSofts products are single-box solutions that require no hardware or software on the receiving end. The companys core technology, FastTCP, is based on research originally developed by FastSofts founders at the California Institute of Technologys Networking Laboratory (Netlab).

150 S Lo s R o b l e s Ave, S u i te 7 5 0 | Pa s a d e n a , Ca 91101 | Phone: (626) 357-7012 | Fax: (626) 357-7017 | fastsof t.com