Aspera Licensing Models
As an IBM Gold Business Partner, we know that organizations like yours who are considering using Aspera’s FASP® technology come from a variety of different industries and have unique needs. For example, if you’re a media & entertainment company, you may be choosing Aspera to fast-track streaming, and need the solution to run for you 24/7/365. But if you’re in the life sciences and healthcare industry, while you may need to send large files around the globe, your file sending frequency is most likely less than a major television network.
IBM knows that every organization that uses Aspera is different, and has unique needs. That’s why they’ve created two flexible licensing models for you to choose from – a perpetual license with a set bandwidth capacity, or a consumption license that’s measured by how many bytes your organization transfers every year.
All About Aspera’s Perpetual Licensing Option
Aspera’s perpetual license is great for organizations that have audited the amount of data they move and have a good idea of how much bandwidth they need on an ongoing basis. With this licensing option, organizations like yours choose a transfer server with a maximum bandwidth cap.
The perpetual license is sold in the following file transfer tiers:
- 100Mbps
- 300Mbps
- 500Mbps
- 1,000Mbps
- Multiple GBs
The performance of each tiered server is different, too. Here’s a table breaking down the throughput of each tier:
| 100Mbps: | 45GB per hour | 1.08TB in 24 hours |
| 300Mbps: | 135GB per hour | 3.24TB in 24 hours |
| 500Mbps: | 225GB per hour | 5.4TB in 24 hours |
| 1Gbps: | 450GB per hour | 10.8TB in 24 hours |
As you can imagine, the price of each of these tiered servers increases with higher transfer capacity.
IBM sells the perpetual license at a one-time cost for the license, which includes the first year of support. Your ongoing costs would only be for support, which would be due at the completion of each year of use. Aspera’s perpetual model is especially great for fixed cost models with long term predictability of expense.
All About Aspera’s Consumption Licensing Option
Aspera’s consumption license is based on your annual usage of the solution. With this licensing option, there’s no limit on:
- How much data you can transfer at any given point of time.
- File transfer bandwidth speed.
- How many file transfer servers you have installed, or the number of locations throughout the globe where you have your file transfer servers installed.
With the consumption license, you can transfer all the data you need, when you need to, with no limits. Aspera’s consumption model provides many benefits, especially for sustained cloud workflows, as well as for short term burst transfer use cases, where high bandwidth transfers are needed for short periods.
To keep tabs on how much data you’re transferring, IBM tracks the data coming in and out of each installed server.
Which Aspera Licensing Option is Right for Your Organization?
We understand that this is a lot of information to take in and consider and that even now that you know the available licensing options for Aspera, you may not be sure which one is right for your organization.
Don’t worry! As your trusted solutions provider, we’re here to help you audit your usage, evaluate your file transfer needs, and help you choose the most cost-effective Aspera licensing option that will help you transfer all the data you need to, when you need to do it.
Over the years, we’ve helped several Aspera users determine which licensing option is best for them, and we can help your organization make that decision as well. As a general rule of thumb, we like to point out that the consumption license may be more cost-effective for your organization if you need servers at multiple sites. In this case, the consumption license may be more preferable to purchasing individual perpetual licenses for each site you need a file transfer server installed at.
Contact Us for Help Evaluating Your Needs
We want to help you use Aspera in the most cost-effective manner possible. For help evaluating which licensing option is best for your organization, call us at (512) 766-8715, or send us an email at sales@pacgenesis.com.
