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How plausible is it to transfer large amounts of data consistently via the network? For example, is there a way to guarantee a minimum upload speed of 8Mb/sec from various international sites (Hong Kong, Paris, Hungary, etc.) to a single site in the US?

What would be the best way to go about this?

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Your question is a little unclear. What do you mean by "via the network"? I will say fast transfer speeds internationally is very plausible - companies do it all the time. In almost all cases they have purchased dedicated bandwidth between company sites, though.

There are a few scenarios based on your question:

  1. Your connections between company sites are point-to-point VPN tunnels across the public internet. If this is the case, you can never GUARANTEE speed, because you don't control the internet. Your traffic travels through areas you can't/don't control, and so you can never guarantee speed. You can use QoS on the tunnels to prioritize certain types of traffic, which might help, but even if you did get 8Mb/s at any given moment, there is no guarantee that at some future point that speed might drop off.
  2. Your connections between company sites are MPLS circuits. If this is the case, then you can guarantee bandwidth - just make sure you purchase enough. MPLS circuits are just dedicated point to point bandwidth. Pay more, get more.
  3. You're asking about users uploading to a website. You can certainly buy enough bandwidth that users might be able to upload at 8Mb/s, if all conditions are right, but there will be no guarantee. The statements in #1 apply, plus you can't guarantee what internet connection the user has - if he has less than 64mbps (which is pretty dang high), he can't upload 8Mb/s no matter what he does.
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  • Guaranteeing the speed is critical, so we're looking more at a #2-type solution.
    – user67856
    Dec 3, 2011 at 20:34
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    Then, yes. It's entirely possible - companies do it every day. Get a hold of your ISP of choice and start discussing dedicated bandwidth between sites (generally that's an MPLS circuit). Get ready to pay a lot of money. And make sure that you make the distinction between Megabytes/second and megabits/second when talking about transfer speed. 8 Megabytes/second is 64 megabits/second. Dec 3, 2011 at 20:45
  • Also remember what guarantee means to normal folks is not guarantee in lawyer speak. There are certainly companies around the world ready to guarantee a speed with a price guarantee. So if I guarantee you 8mb but you happen to get 4 you'll only pay for 4.- see its guaranteed! I have a client that didn't read his fine print and is dealing with that issue now.
    – Jim B
    Dec 4, 2011 at 5:45

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