I am about to design a video conversion service, that is scalable on the conversion side. The architecture is as follows: Webpage for video upload When done, a message gets sent out to one of several resizing servers The server locates the video, saves it on disk, and converts it to several formats and resolutions The resizing server uploads the output to a content server, and messages back that the conversion is done. Messaging is something I have covered, but right now I am transferring via FTP, and wonder if there is a better way? is there something faster, or more reliable? All the servers will be sitting in the same gigabit switch or neighboring switch, so fast transfer is expected.