Highlights:

  • The launch comes almost a year after Akamai bought Linode LLC, a provider of infrastructure-as-a-service, for about USD 900 million.
  • Akamai claims that all cloud services will adhere to ISO, SOC 2, and HIPAA standards and that introducing the Akamai Qualified Computing Partner Program would increase their utility.

Akamai Technologies Inc., which provides content delivery network and offers cloud services, recently, announced that it is launching a huge distributed edge and cloud platform called Akamai Connected Cloud.

It is made to work with cloud computing, content delivery, and security in a way that brings experiences and applications closer to end users and protects them better from security threats. The launch comes almost a year after Akamai bought Linode LLC, a provider of infrastructure-as-a-service, for about USD 900 million.

Linode was a competitor to cloud services like Amazon Web Services Inc. and Google Cloud, but it was much smaller and less complicated. It was made for small developers who didn’t want to be stuck with big companies or get nasty surprises when they got their bills. At the time of the purchase, Akamai said it would use Linode’s features to make itself the “world’s most distributed compute platform.”

The result is Akamai Connected Cloud, and the company is adding core and distributed sites to the same infrastructure backbone that powers its existing edge network. This is a huge step forward for the company’s cloud capabilities. It is meant to offer developers a distributed platform for building, running, and securing next-generation applications.

Akamai says its Connected Cloud service is available in 4,100 locations in 134 countries. This puts compute, storage, database, and other essential cloud services closer to large populations, industries, and IT centers. It said that as a result, developers can now build and deploy more efficient cloud workloads with a latency of fewer than ten milliseconds and global reach.

The company wants to work with customers in the media, gaming, software-as-a-service, retail, and government industries. It hopes to win them over not only with the features of Akamai Connected Cloud but also with low prices.

It said that it has been able to use the power of its existing network to bring CDN-like economics to cloud data transfer and lower the cost of cloud egress. Because of this, it can offer much lower egress rates than other cloud service providers, the company said.

Tom Leighton, co-founder, and CEO of Akamai, claimed that because of his company’s expertise in edge computing, anything from content to cybersecurity could be scaled, bringing customers’ digital experiences closer to them while keeping threats farther away. He said, “Our customers know us and trust us for this scale. Now we plan to scale cloud computing, to provide customers with better performance at a lower cost.”

Eleven primary cloud computing facilities are already part of Akamai’s cloud infrastructure, dispersed around the United States, Europe, and Asia. Three additional sites will be added and ready to use by the end of the second quarter. After constructing ten additional core locations the following year, they will offer all of Linode’s cloud computing services. At the same time, Akamai intends to establish new “distributed” sites in more than 50 cities around the world this year, providing essential cloud computing services to more “difficult-to-reach” areas that conventional cloud providers currently neglect.

Akamai Chief Operating Officer and General Manager Adam Karon defined Akamai Connected Cloud as a “continuum of computation” that extends from the core to the edge, along with security, CDN, and round-the-clock support, in a blog post.

He added, “With Linode’s developer-friendly DNA, you’ll find it simpler to deploy distributed applications. Developers will be able to use these capabilities for applications, workloads, and use cases that haven’t been imagined yet.”

Akamai claims that all cloud services will adhere to ISO, SOC 2, and HIPAA standards and that introducing the Akamai Qualified Computing Partner Program would increase their utility. According to the statement, this is to provide customers with various services from third-party compatible with the Akamai Connected Cloud.

To deliver workloads across a broader range of computing and geography, the next generation of cloud computing, according to International Data Corp. analyst Dave McCarthy, will require changing how enterprises and developers think about bringing their applications and data closer to customers.

McCarthy said, “Akamai’s innovative rethinking of how this gets done — and how it is architecting Akamai Connected Cloud — puts it in a unique position to usher in an exciting new era for technology and to help enterprises build, deploy and secure distributed applications.”