Business Challenge
Enable over 10,000 banking professionals to share large collections of confidential and time sensitive files across global corporate banking teams within tight timelines.
Transformation
Using the Aspera software developer kit (SDK) and APIs, the bank integrated IBM Aspera Streaming into their legacy asset management software enabling remote teams to securely upload, download, view, edit and share individual files and whole directories at high-speed.
Results
500% faster downloads
Faster global download speeds enabled remote teams to collaborate in real time, boosting productivity and accelerating deal cycles.Cost reduction
Reduced the need for costly and poor performing WAN acceleration devices, which the bank projected to significantly reduce CapExEasy & secure to launch
By integrating the secure Aspera technology into its legacy client application, the bank saved considerable time training employees on a new application.Business Challenge Story
Accelerating M&A deals with high-speed data transfer
Every day, thousands of bankers log into this crucial application. Time sensitive and confidential files including terms sheets, financial statements, market reports, and contracts are shared with teams around the world. Individual files range in size from a few megabytes to over a gigabyte in size. Despite the relatively small size of files, teams struggled to access and download critical documents in a timely fashion.
The challenges were amplified for employees in remote locations moving data over high latency global networks. Often times teams were accessing files stored in datacenters thousands of miles away in another country. In one test, it took an employee nearly 20 minutes to download a single file roughly 100MB in size.
Considering teams are frequently downloading whole directories and iterating on files multiple times, these slowdowns can add days and weeks to time-sensitive business transactions. With thousands of new files being uploaded weekly, the bank knew they needed an alternative solution to HTTP-based transfers.
Transformation Story
Staggering speed for secure, instant file access and editing
The bank’s application provides critical, custom-built security, tracking and auditing capabilities. Simply replacing with off-the-shelf software or cloud file sharing was not an option. The bank needed an embedded approach. Initially, they tried using WAN acceleration hardware appliances. Costly and hard to manage, these devices only produced a 5% improvement in transfer speeds, hardly noticeable to the end user.
Starting with a simple proof of concept, the bank tested IBM Aspera high-speed transfer software. The improvements were staggering, reducing transfers from minutes and hours to seconds. In addition to performance, Aspera’s flexible software-based architecture and SDK’s meant high-speed transfer could be easily integrated into the bank’s existing application.
After a successful evaluation, the bank moved forward with a full deployment. Clusters of Aspera High-speed Transfer Servers were placed in each of the data centers around the world providing scalability, redundancy, and most importantly, high-speed data transfer.
Additionally, the bank chose IBM Aspera’s SDK and IBM Aspera Streaming APIs to integrate high-speed streaming into the client application. Rather than starting and completing a transfer by reading and writing a whole file from disk, the Aspera streaming integration allows bankers to access and edit files instantly as the data arrives in a stream, significantly reducing load times. IBM Aspera Console was deployed as well to provide a simple web UI to manage transfer logging, control and reporting.
Results Story
Significantly reducing costs and improving productivity
Across all tests, Aspera blew away the competition and existing technology. Between international offices, transfer speeds improved over 500%, delivering files in seconds compared to the nearly 20 minutes per file previously experienced. IBM Aspera’s revolutionary streaming software enables global bankers to access and edit files in real time without delay regardless of where the data is stored, improving productivity and accelerating time-sensitive corporate banking deals and activities. Because Aspera’s streaming technology integrates into the bank’s existing content management platform, no retraining is required for the thousands of end users of the application.
Aspera’s software-based deployment model was also a key deciding factor. Normally, it could take over a year to test and launch a new application. With Aspera, the bank went from discussion to pilot to deployment in under 2 months. The flexibility and ease of use enabled the bank to revolutionize application performance in record time.
With Aspera, the bank expects to significantly reduce capital expenditures in the first year of the project. Aspera’s distance agnostic high-speed data transfer capabilities enable the bank to consolidate storage where it is most cost effective and reduce the need for expensive, poor performing WAN acceleration hardware appliances.
Finally, Aspera’s robust encryption in transit and at rest, full transfer reporting and control, and integration with the legacy application’s existing security capabilities helps ensure the bank’s most sensitive data is fully protected.
A Leading Global Bank
An international banking service provider uses Aspera to improve productivity and efficiency.
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