IBM has completed its acquisition of Aspera Inc., a company that provides technology that makes cloud computing faster and more cost effective.
Aspera's patented "fasp" technology is licensed to many cloud computing services and will be integrated with IBM's recently acquired SoftLayer cloud infrastructure.
Aspera's technology accelerates the secure transfer of large files or data sets by up to 99.9 percent, according to IBM. A company using fasp technology can send a 24 gigabyte file halfway around the world in just 30 seconds, IBM said. The fasp protocol breaks the bottlenecks inherent in broadband networks in WAN environments.
Traditional network protocols limit the speed and reliability of moving Big Data to where it is needed most. Large data transfers can take hours or days by traditional methods and can be compromised by security issues, according to IBM.
The technology also provides Big Data transfers with bandwidth control, predictability and security, including the encryption of files in transit or at rest.
"Aspera solves critical challenges at the intersection of two of the most influential trends driving business today—Big Data and cloud computing," said Craig Hayman, general manager of industry cloud solutions for IBM.
He added the acquisition will allow IBM to help customers move large files to and from the cloud and within the enterprise to "where individuals can extract real business insights from that data."
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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