How Does MASV’s File Acceleration Technology Work?

Just how fast is MASV? Try the File Transfer Time Calculator

1. Fast is good, but you still have to cross the finish line.

To control congestion, networks intentionally drop packets. TCP detects congestion and adjusts to it so it can use network bandwidth as efficiently as possible. By itself, UDP ignores congestion, so it crams more packets onto the network (and potentially loses them).

2. UDP has a reputation as a network bully.

Consequently, some network administrators block UDP traffic. TCP is more likely to work across firewalls without needing to open a ticket with the IT help desk.

3. TCP is easier for you (the end-user).

TCP solves complicated problems out-of-the-box. That lets MASV developers focus on more important things, like solving user’s real problems versus troubleshooting.

UDP-based file transfer services are more complex because they need to reinvent the wheel for reliability and throughput. Some UDP-based vendors even require you to install their own UDP-optimized hardware in your network. TCP-based file transfer leaves these complicated problems to the robust, proven implementations already in the operating system and network infrastructure.

4. Web browsers are agile and secure.

Have you ever seen a browser be down for a significant amount of time? Chances are, no. That’s because the world relies on browsers every day to get their job done. That’s why browser technology — primarily TCP-based — is always up-to-date against errors, bugs, and vulnerabilities. And that’s something UDP-based file transfer providers struggle to protect against in a timely manner.

1. Our Express Cloud Infrastructure

A common concern many people have with TCP-based file transfer is the distance between servers and the subsequent latency.

That’s where our express cloud infrastructure comes into play. MASV grants traditional TCP-based file delivery access to a smooth, private expressway.

MASV uses Amazon AWS, which has data centers around the world. And AWS has its own, fast, private network for their data centers.

When it sends your file, MASV chooses a data center that’s close to you. Once it’s in the cloud, MASV gets your file to your recipients with a content delivery network (CDN). A CDN is a specialized data center, built to serve data quickly to a geographic region.

Of course, MASV chooses the closest data centers and CDNs for you automatically, all you have to do is send or receive.

If you’re keeping track, MASV leverages the speed, simplicity, and reliability of TCP and supercharges it with access to a private AWS cloud network to accelerate large file transfers.

2. Splitting Large Files During Transit

MASV could send your large file in one request to a single server in the cloud, but that wouldn’t use the network or the cloud efficiently.

In addition to an expressway, MASV further speeds up transfers by splitting your large file into chunks, then sends each chunk to the cloud data center separately. MASV then reassembles your file at the data center.

A cloud data center is built to handle lots of data quickly:

• They have thousands and thousands of servers.
• They offer fast internet connections to the outside world.
• They have even faster networking inside the data center.

As a bonus, chunking shortens the time for recovering from network problems.

The internet is a complicated place where packets can get lost or mangled. If there is a problem with the transfer, MASV only needs to resend a chunk, not the entire file.

To get the file to the data center reliably and securely, MASV does a couple of things:

• To verify that the file it reassembles is the same as the file you sent, MASV uses checksums. Think of a checksum as a fingerprint of the file’s contents.
• Before sending the chunks, MASV encrypts them with Transport Layer Security (TLS), an industry-recognized cryptographic protocol.

3. Maximizing Bandwidth Usage

To get the fastest transfer, it’s important to saturate the network. Network saturation means carrying data at the network’s maximum capacity. MASV does this with smart technical decisions and optimizing its implementation:

• Multiple TCP connections are even faster. Before your data arrives at the data center, it might go through network infrastructure that prefers reliability over speed. Another reason MASV uses chunking is to work around this by sending each chunk with its own TCP connection. This way, MASV gets higher throughput while still benefiting from TCP’s reliability.
• High-performance cloud infrastructure. Cloud providers offer different networking tiers that balance cost and performance. When it can take advantage of it, MASV uses the higher-performance services to transfer your large files.
• Optimizing MASV itself. Choosing the right technologies is only the first step. MASV developers spend a lot of time optimizing these technologies to use them as efficiently as possible.

4. Custom Acceleration Features

MASV itself is optimized for fast, reliable transfer in the middle mile, the part of the internet outside your home or office. MASV can also speed up transfers at the last mile, the part of the internet that connects your home or office to the internet.

This is thanks to our custom acceleration features that can be found in the MASV Desktop app.

1. Multiconnect – access to more pipes

The Desktop app can use more than one connection — or network ‘pipes’ — on your laptop or desktop. This is possible with Multiconnect — our channel bonding feature which combines Wi-Fi, ethernet, LTE, 5G, and any other internet connections your computer has.

Multiconnect was designed for remote workers:

• Whether you’re at-home and your single home internet connection isn’t enough;
• Or, you’re at location on a film shoot where Wi-Fi or land-based connections are unreliable (or not available).

2. 10Gbps optimization – access to a bigger pipe

There is a misunderstanding that more internet = faster transfers. While that is true in some regards, whether or not a file transfer service has a big enough pipe to accommodate more internet makes a big difference.

If you’re ready to make the investment to upgrade your networking to 10Gbps, the MASV Desktop app is optimized for the extra bandwidth at no extra charge.

When you turn on 10Gbps file transfer in the app, it does the following:

• Adapts to utilize even more of your bandwidth.
• Uses the counterpart 10Gbps features in the cloud data centers.

3. Time-saving features

The following aren’t ‘acceleration’ technologies with the express purpose of speeding up file transfers. But they are practical features in the Desktop app that help you save time:

5. Bonus: Incentivizing Deliveries

One important thing I haven’t mentioned until now is incentive — a big reason why MASV uses these acceleration technologies for your large files.

Other file transfer solutions keep infrastructure costs down by sharing bandwidth among their users, even to the point of throttling bandwidth. Among its plans, MASV offers pay-as-you-go pricing on downloads. With this plan, we only charge you once a file has been downloaded.

So the faster (and more reliably) you get your large files, the sooner we get paid.