As the amount of data sent and received by your company continues to expand via new partnerships and growing staff/customers, improving slow file transfer speeds is most likely a big challenge for your IT department. Though various factors come into play that can cause slow file transfers (e.g. file sizes, low bandwidth or insufficient hardware), it can also be rooted in an issue with the core protocol that governs how internet traffic is routed over the internet, the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).
In this post, we will explain to you the challenges that BGP causes for sending files fast and also show you an enterprise-grade solution that can help you solve these problems.
File Sharing Challenges Caused by Border Gateway Protocol
You may be thinking, “What exactly is BGP?” Essentially, BGP is the technology that routes traffic across the various network providers around the world (AKA the “Internet Backbone”) and is essentially what makes the global internet connect. For example, every time you upload a file from your computer to a server over the internet, your data must pass through several different network provider machines on the way to its destination; BGP is what decides the route your data will take from one network provider to the next and this influences how long the travel time will take.
Now that you know a little bit about how BGP works, you may now be wondering, “How can BGP slow down my file upload and download speeds?” Here are a couple of primary challenges from BGP that slow down data transfer speed:
- BGP routes data based on cost, not speed: It’s a common misconception that BGP directs traffic down the shortest distance, but this is not the case. Rather, ISPs collaborate together to establish BGP routing rules that benefit each company by routing traffic based on cost and not speed, referred to as “least cost routing.” This is a problem because it can negatively affect the performance of your company’s file sharing processes over the internet.
- BGP does not detect and avoid network congestion: Another problem with BGP is that it does not detect network congestion, meaning traffic is often sent down inefficient routes. This causes online services in certain areas of the world to be naturally very slow, resulting in high cost and complex infrastructure requirements for companies with locations in these regions.
Send and Receive Files 20X Faster
One way your company can solve the performance challenges caused by BGP is by using Thru’s high speed file transfer service offering to send and receive files up to 20x faster than with standard internet. Your users send and receive files of any size using our global file sharing platform and “cloud-based routing” technology that automatically directs uploads and downloads on the fastest route, avoiding network congestion in real-time.
This global virtual network is within public cloud data centers and constantly analyzes global internet traffic to send files down routes that avoid congested areas. This accelerated service is offered as an add-on service of our global file sharing and content collaboration platform, which is used to access, manage and send files from any device. Integrations with Outlook and Salesforce enable your users to send and receive files at high speeds from the applications they use every day.
A company that uses the our file sharing platform with high speed file transfer service is Germany’s Röchling Automotive. With thousands of users around the world (in over 36 locations) needing to collaborate on large files (CAD files up to 5GB), the company had problems with slow speeds and file size limits when users sent and received data over long distances with customers, partners and vendors. To solve these issues, Röchling now uses the Thru integrated with IBM Notes to quickly send large files to any location. With file transfer acceleration enabled, the company increased file sharing speeds by up to 20X to solve its slow speed issue and even solved complex problems with getting data past the “Great Chinese Firewall.”
To learn more about how Thru can increase your company’s file sharing speeds, watch the “global file transfer race” video.
