Planning for Apsera FASP for Connect:Direct for z/OS

Aspera FASP is a high-speed transport for file transfer that avoids some of the slow-downs experienced with TCP, especially in networks with high latency and/or high packet loss.

IBM® Connect:Direct® UNIX (Linux and AIX) and IBM Connect:Direct Windows provide native support for utilizing FASP for the COPY step of a PROCESS. In order to support FASP with IBM Connect:Direct , the user must purchase and install a High Speed Adapter Option (HSAO) license.

Figure 1. Install a High Speed Adapter Option (HSAO) license
Support is being added to IBM Sterling Secure Proxy (SSP) that will allow IBM Connect:Direct FASP transfers to pass through SSP. Since HSAO licenses are required at each end of the transfer, no additional HSAO license is needed in SSP.
Figure 2. FASP transfers through SSP
SSP is designed in such a way that there is a complete session break between the two IBM Connect:Direct nodes. In this way, SSP offers the capability of having one side of the session using Secure+ while the other side of the session is not. This way, an internal IBM Connect:Direct can eliminate the overhead of encryption/decryption when passing through SSP and have SSP encrypt/decrypt that data this going over the public internet. Since SSP does a complete session break, there should be some way provided for SSP to use FASP protocol for one side of a session and the IBM Connect:Direct TCP protocol for the other side.
Figure 3. FASP transfers and session break between two IBM Connect Direct nodes
It should also be possible to allow two SSPs to use FASP across the public network without the two IBM Connect:Direct having to use FASP.
Figure 4. SSPs using FASP across public network
The Connect:Direct for z/OS® Server requires the following definitions. See, Connect:Direct for z/OSAdministration Guide for detail description of the FASP Initialization parameters.
Note: A HSAO license must be obtained and stored in the zOS files system and available to the IBM Connect:Direct Server during initialization. 
fasp=(yes|no|ssp , yes |no |ssp)	
fasp.bandwidth=nnnn|<bandwidth_from_license>
fasp.filesize.threshold=nnn|1G
fasp.policy=fair|high|low|fixed
IBM Connect:Direct Server start must include a DD statement for the Aspera license file. For example,
 //CDASPLIC DD DISP=SHR,DSN=$CD.HSAO.LICENSE
Note: To enable FASP via SSP the initialization parameter must be FASP=(SSP,SSP)