Fast and Secure Protocol: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Terminal command scheme used to transfer data}}

{{Infobox networking protocol

[[File:FTP vs Aspera Comparison.webm|thumb|A screencast showing downloading the same file from the European Sequence Read Archive via wget/FTP and ascp/Aspera/FASP]]

| title = Fast and Secure Protocol

| logo =

| logo alt =

| image =

| image alt =

| caption =

| is stack = No

| abbreviation = FASP

| purpose = Data transfer

| developer = Michelle C. Munson and Serban Simu

| date = {{Start date and age| | | }}<!--Fill in: Year (4 digits), month and day (2 digits)-->

| based on = [[User Datagram Protocol|UDP]]

| influenced =

| osilayer =

| ports = tcp/22, udp/33001

| rfcs =

| hardware =

}}

[[File:FTP vs Aspera Comparison.webm|thumb|A screencast showing downloading the same file from the European Sequence Read Archive via [[wget]]/[[File Transfer Protocol|FTP]] and ascp/Aspera/FASP]]

{{Internet protocol suite|transport=FASP}}

{{IPstack}}

The '''Fast Adaptive and Secure Protocol''' ('''FASP''') is a [[Proprietary software|proprietary]] data transfer [[Communication protocol|protocol]]. FASP is a network-optimized network protocol developedcreated by Michelle C. Munson and Serban Simu, productized by [[Aspera (company)|Aspera]], and now owned by [[IBM]] subsequent to its acquisition of Aspera. The associated client/server software packages are also commonly called Aspera.<ref name="register">{{cite web|url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/01/aspera/|title=Aspera high speed file transfer: Let the cloud protocol wars begin|website=[[The Register]]}}</ref><ref name="ena">{{cite web|url=https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browse/read-download#downloading_files_aspera|title=European Nucleotide Archive: Downloading using Aspera}}</ref> The technology is [[patented]] under US Patent #8085781, ''Bulk Data Transfer'', #20090063698, ''Method and system for aggregate bandwidth control''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://wwwpatents.google.com/patentspatent/US20090063698|title=Method and system for aggregate bandwidth control}}</ref> and others.

SimilarBuilt toupon the [[Connectionless communication|connectionless]] [[User Datagram Protocol|UDP]] protocol, FASP does not expect any feedback on every [[Network packet|packet]] sent, and yet provides fully reliable data transfer over best effort IP networks. Only the packets marked as really lost must be requested again by the recipient. As a result, it does not suffer as much loss of throughput as [[Transmission Control Protocol|TCP]] does on networks with high [[Latency (engineering)|latency]] or high [[packet loss]] and avoids the overhead of naive "UDP data blaster" protocols.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://downloads.asperasoft.com/en/technology/shortcomings_of_TCP_2/the_shortcomings_of_TCP_file_transfer_2|title=Aspera - High-speed file transfer software -|website=downloads.asperasoft.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://gcn.com/Articles/2014/05/15/FOSE-Data-transfer-protocol.aspx|title=FASP transfer protocol speeds data transmission to the cloud}}</ref> The protocol innovates upon naive "data blaster" protocols through an optimal control-theoretic retransmission algorithm and implementation that achieves maximum [[goodput]] and avoids redundant retransmission of data. Its control model is designed to fill the available bandwidth of the end-to-end path over which the transfer occurs with only "good" and needed data.

Large organizations like [[IBM]],{{citation needed|date=January 2018}} the [[European Nucleotide Archive]],<ref name="ena" /> the US [[National Institutes of Health]] [[National Center for Biotechnology Information]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/faspftp/1000genomes/|title=NCBI 1000 Genomes: Aspera Download}}</ref> and others<ref>{{cite web|url=http://asperasoft.com/partners/joint-partner-solutions/|title=Aspera Joint Partner Solutions|date=20 January 2018|website=asperasoft.com}}</ref> use the protocol in different areas. [[AmazonThe (company)|Amazon]]technology alsowas wantsrecognized towith usemany theawards protocolincluding foran uploadingEngineering toEmmy datafrom centers.<ref>{{citethe web|url=https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Amazon-nutzt-schnelleres-uebertragungsprotokoll-fuer-Web-Services-788844.html|title=AmazonAcademy nutztof schnelleresFilm Übertragungsprotokolland für Web Services|last=Schwan|first=Ben|website=heise online}}</ref>Television.

==Security==

{{Unreferenced section|date=July 2018}}

FASP has built-in security mechanisms that do not affect the transmission speed. The [[encryption]] [[algorithm]]s used are based exclusively on [[open standard]]s. BeforeSome theproduct transfer,implementation [[SSH]]use issecure used for [[key exchange]] forand authentication. Thesesuch randomlyas generated, one-way keys are discarded at the end of the transmission[[SSH]].

The data is optionally encrypted or decrypted immediately before sending and receiving with the [[Advanced Encryption Standard|AES-128]]. To counteract attacks by monitoring the encrypted information during long transfers, the AES is operated in [[cipher feedback mode]] with a random, public [[initialization vector]] for each block. In addition, an integrity check of each [[Block (data storage)|data block]] takes place, in which case, for example, a [[man-in-the-middle attack]] would be noticed.

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FASP's control [[port (computer networking)|port]] is TCP port 22{{snd}} the same port that SSH uses. For data transfer, it begins at UDP port 33001, which increments with each additional connection thread.<ref name="register"/>

FASP's flow control algorithm, unlike TCP's, completely ignores packet drops. Instead, it acts on changes in measured packet delivery time. When that is growing, queues are getting longer and channel bandwidth is exceeded; falling, queues are getting shorter. Acting on this information is complicated because the receiver has it and the sender needs it, but its lifetime is often less than the transmission delay; and measurements are noisy. Thus, the sender uses a predictive filter fed updates from the receiver.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21909190 | title=Ex Aspera Dev here. I did the encryption and early parallel work. There is a lot... &#124; Hacker News }}</ref>

The transmission rate is chosen to match and not exceed the available channel bandwidth, and trigger no drops, accounting for all traffic on the channel.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Klimek |first=Ivan |url=https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/53450087/technicka-univerzita-v-kosiciach-stargatecnlsk |title=Wide Area Network Traffic Optimization |publisher=Technical University of Košice |year=2011 |___location=Košice |pages=49 |language=en |department=Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics}}</ref> By contrast, TCP slowly increases its rate until it sees a packet drop and falls back, interpreting any drop as congestion. On a channel with long delay and frequent packet loss, TCP never approaches the actual bandwidth available. FASP cooperates with TCP flows on the same channel, using up bandwidth TCP leaves unused.

==See also==

{{Portal|Internet}}

* [[Tsunami UDP Protocol]]

* [[UDP-based Data Transfer Protocol|UDP-based Data Transfer Protocol (UDT)]]