Dropbox announces network expansion to boost file access speeds

Dropbox is following through on its infrastructure commitments and expanding its edge network to boost file access speeds.

The cloud storage vendor says it's developed and deployed its own custom-built "proxy stack" based on open-source infrastructure in its facilities in North America, improving sync speeds and reducing networking costs by half along the way.

Over the next several months, Dropbox will turn on five new regional accelerators across key regions, including Sydney, Miami, Paris, Madrid and Milan. By the end of 2017, Dropbox says it will have a total infrastructure footprint spanning 25 facilities in ten countries and four continents, including storage for users globally.

The effort is another step in Dropbox's Magic Pocket project, which refers to the company's exabyte-scale infrastructure that it's building to improve performance and increase reliability for Dropbox Business users. According to Dropbox, Magic Pocket is designed to push the boundaries of the company's platform while still representing its core file-storage roots.

"Since we began expanding our infrastructure footprint in early 2015, we have cut networking costs outside of North America in half while increasing our industry-leading sync speeds globally by as much as 300 percent," said Dan Williams, head of production engineering at Dropbox.

"This is possible because we have built a global private network that enables us to bypass the complex web of intermediaries that make up the Internet while sending traffic directly to our own cloud infrastructure."