Sending 100 GB down a line that keeps dropping

Every technician has a version of this story. A database backup of forty gigabytes has to move from a branch office to head office. The transfer starts at five in the afternoon. At 91 percent the connection blinks. The progress bar returns to zero.

On a fibre line in a capital city this is an irritation. On a mobile connection, or a rural link that drops when it rains, it means the file never arrives.

Carry on from where it stopped

Vukalink treats an interruption as normal. When a transfer breaks, the program keeps what has arrived. When the connection returns, it continues from that point instead of starting again. A file that needs four attempts still only travels once.

Checked on arrival

Speed is not much use if the file is wrong. Each file is verified when it lands, so a backup that says it arrived is the backup that was sent. This is dull engineering, and it is the difference between restoring a system and discovering at the worst moment that the archive is damaged.

How large

Paid plans and the 60-day trial move files of up to 100 GB. The Free version allows 1 GB a file, which covers documents, installers and most logs.

Why it travels directly

Where the two networks allow it, files go straight from one computer to the other, encrypted, without being stored on a server of ours along the way. That keeps them private and usually makes them faster. Where a direct path is not possible, the encrypted traffic is relayed.

None of this will ever make a headline. But ask people who support real offices what they need, and "the file gets there" comes well ahead of anything clever. We built that part first.