Qualcomm Inc (QCOM)

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Orbital Data's Fat Pipe

Former Inktomi execs tackle appliance solution for large file transfers; digital asset management targeted first

Two-year-old Orbital Data today closed a $12 million round of financing and launched its flagship rack appliance, aimed at speeding large file transfers, specifically in the digital asset management (DAM) space.

The Orbital 5500 is not a compression device. Rather, it employs an updated transport algorithm technology called TotalTransport, which is tuned to business applications. One device at each end of a distant network link speeds file transfer by 10 times and many more according to Orbital. Pricing runs $10,000 to $50,000 per appliance.

The product has already been adopted by 16 companies, including media companies overseas and three of the ten largest Hollywood studios. Large media buyers typically exchange high-end digital files of hundreds of megabytes or gigabytes with ad agencies and production houses. With transfers possible in minutes instead of several hours, cycle times are shortened for digital markups and revisions.

Qualcomm uses the device in a PLM collaborative workflow setting, for transferring Cadence design documents from Triangle Park to San Diego. Orbital is also working with oil and gas companies that transmit large files of seismic data to central repositories for evaluation.

"TCP is a 40-year-old protocol updated in the 80s to include congestion control and traffic management, but never designed for the scale of networks we see today," says Dick Pierce a former Inktomi COO who is now CEO of Orbital Data. "It inherently limits the ability to completely fill a long-distance pipe, so that's what we do."

On the surface, it appears there are limited selling opportunities for the appliance, but Pierce feels there is widespread pent-up demand for the transfer of large files. "One is in medical records space where more records are going digital," he says. "X-ray and MRI work at a standard hospital will generate a terabyte of storage a month." Software distribution is another area for use, as are settings when peak-hour WAN use pulls down network performance, reminiscent of the old mainframe days.

"[Author] William Gibson once said, 'The future's arrived, unfortunately it's unevenly distributed,'" says DAM authority Michael Moon, president and CEO of GISTICS. "Where latency defines a critical success factor for an application or a business process, this [type of appliance] is a lifesaver."

With respect to DAM, accelerating the speed and volume of data will effect synchronization of business processes and workflows, Moon says. For large stock and customer image providers like Getty or Corbis, a five or 10 second latency can translate to cash in the till at the end of the day. "Perhaps in five years, more companies will think in terms of these requirements," Moon says

There are other acceleration devices for protocols like XML, but Orbital Data is placing its bet at the transport level. Large file transfers are a logical starting point, but Pierce says this does not preclude looking at smaller files that are also time-sensitive. "Enterprises build WANs that cover a broad area of applications," he says. "They'd really like to tune their WAN to critical business needs."

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