Akamai Technologies, Inc. is an American company that provides content delivery network[3] (CDN), cybersecurity, DDoS mitigation, and cloud services.[4][5] Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it operates a worldwide network of servers whose capacity it rents to customers running websites and other web services, with the goal of providing end users with greater speed and availability via Akamai-owned servers located closer to them.
History
The company was named after akamai, which means 'clever,' or more colloquially, 'cool' in Hawaiian. Lewin found the term in an Hawaiian-English dictionary after a colleague's suggestion.[6]
Akamai Technologies entered the 1998 MIT $50K competition with a business proposition based on their research on consistent hashing,[7] and was selected as one of the finalists.[8] By August 1998, they had developed a working prototype, and with the help of Jonathan Seelig and Randall Kaplan, they took steps to incorporate the company.[9] Akamai Technologies was incorporated on August 20, 1998.[10]
In late 1998 and early 1999, a group of business professionals and scientists joined the founding team—most notably, Paul Sagan, former president of New Media for Time Inc., and George Conrades, former chairman and chief executive officer of BBN Corp. and senior vice president of US operations for IBM. Conrades became chief executive officer of Akamai in April 1999.[11][12][13] The company launched its commercial service in April 1999 and was listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market from October 29, 1999.[14]
In 2005, Paul Sagan was named chief executive officer of Akamai, taking over from Conrades. Sagan worked to differentiate Akamai from its competitors by expanding its breadth of services.[13] Under his leadership, it grew to $1.37 billion in revenue.[17]
In July 2007, Akamai was added to the S&P 500 Index.[18]
In 2013, co-founder Tom Leighton was elected chief executive officer, replacing Sagan.[19]
On February 9, 2021, Akamai announced it would reorganize into two internal groups, Security Technology and Edge Technology. It also re-established the role of chief technology officer, and named Robert Blumofe to that role.[20] Long-time chief security officer (CSO) Andy Ellis announced he would leave in March 2021.[21]
Akamai's headquarters are in Kendall Square. It started in Technology Square and later expanded to multiple buildings in Cambridge Center. It consolidated its offices in a purpose-built building at 145 Broadway in December 2019.[22]
Technologies
Akamai Intelligent Edge Platform
The Akamai Intelligent Platform[23] is a distributed cloud computing platform that operates worldwide, a network of over approximately 365,000 servers in more than 135 countries.[24] These servers reside on roughly 1,350 of the world's networks, gathering real-time information about traffic, congestion, and trouble spots.[24] Each Akamai server is equipped with proprietary software that uses complex algorithms to process requests from nearby users.[23]
The content delivery process begins with a user submitting a request to a browser. When a user enters a URL, a DNS request is triggered to Akamai's authoritative DNS[25] and an IP address is retrieved. With the IP address, the browser can then directly contact the Akamai edge server for subsequent requests.[26] In a content delivery network (CDN) structure, the domain name of the URL is translated by the mapping system[27] into the IP address of an edge server to serve the content to the user.[23]
Akamai delivers web content over its Intelligent Platform by transparently mirroring elements such as HTML, CSS, software downloads, and media objects from customers' servers. The Akamai server is automatically chosen depending on the type of content and the user's network location. The servers are located in more than 200 countries and territories.[28] Receiving content from a server nearer to the user allows for faster downloads and less vulnerability to network congestion. Akamai claims to provide better scalability by delivering the content over the last mile from servers close to end-users, avoiding the middle-mile bottleneck of the Internet.[29] The Download Delivery product line includes HTTP downloads for large downloadable objects, a customizable application for consumers, and analytics tools with metrics that monitor and report on the download process.[30]
Peer-to-peer networking
In addition to using its own servers, Akamai delivers certain content from other end-users' computers, in the form of peer-to-peer networking.[31][32]
Network Operations Command Center
Akamai's Network Operations Command Center (NOCC) proactively monitors and troubleshoots all servers in the global Akamai network[33] and generates real-time statistics, providing a view of Internet traffic conditions on Akamai's servers and customers' websites.[34]
State of the Internet
Akamai releases The State of the Internet, a quarterly a report based on data gathered from its Intelligent Platform, with statistics including connection speeds, broadband adoption, attack traffic, network connectivity, and mobile connectivity.[35][36]
Internet visualization tools
Akamai's data visualization tools display how data is moving across the Internet in real-time, including global web conditions, malicious attack traffic, and Internet connectivity.[37] Their net-usage indices also monitor global news consumption, industry-specific traffic, and mobile trends.[38] Akamai also offers the Internet Visualization application, allowing users to see real-time data on their mobile devices.[39]
OPEN Initiative
On October 9, 2013, Akamai announced its Open Initiative at the 2013 Akamai Edge Conference. OPEN allows customers and partners to develop and customize how they interact with the Akamai Intelligent Platform. Its key components include system and development operations integration, real-time big data integration, and a single-point user interface.[40]
Plume Partnership
In January 2021, Akamai partnered with Plume, combining the Akamai Security and Personalization Services (SPS) mobile security suite and real-time threat intelligence with Plume's Consumer Experience Management (CEM) Platform.[41]
Primary domains
In addition to about 60 other domains, Akamai Technologies' primary domains include:
On July 21, 1999, at Macworld Expo New York, Apple and Akamai announced a strategic partnership to build Apple's new media network, QuickTime TV (QTV), based on QuickTime Streaming Server.[44] Both companies later announced that Apple had made a $12.5 million investment in the company the previous month.[45] Apple continues to use Akamai as their primary CDN[46] for a wide range of applications, including software downloads from Apple's Website, QuickTime movie trailers, and the iTunes Store.[47]
In September 1999, Microsoft and Akamai formed a strategic relationship to incorporate Windows Media technology in Akamai's FreeFlow service, and to facilitate the porting of the FreeFlow product to the Windows platform; this relationship exists to this day.[48] Microsoft Azure offers Akamai (along with Verizon) as options for its "standard" CDN service.[49]
Arabic news network Al-Jazeera was an Akamai customer from March 28, 2003 to April 2, 2003, when Akamai decided to end the relationship,[50] which the network's English-language managing editor claimed was due to "political pressure".[51]
In June 2008, The NewsMarket teamed with Akamai to accelerate dynamic content and applications to global media ahead of the Beijing Olympics.[52]
On February 10, 2000, Akamai acquired Network24 Communications[60] for 621,000 shares of common stock and $12.5 million in cash.[61]
On April 20, 2000,[61] Akamai acquired InterVU Inc.[62] for 10.0 million shares of common stock.
On July 25, 2000, Akamai acquired CallTheShots, Inc., for an aggregate purchase price of $3.7 million.[61]
On June 10, 2005, Akamai acquired Speedera Networks, Inc. for 10.6 million shares of Akamai common stock and options to purchase 1.7 million shares of Akamai common stock.[63]
On December 13, 2006, Akamai acquired Nine Systems, Inc.,[64] for an aggregate purchase price of $157.5 million.[65]
On March 13, 2007, Akamai acquired Netli Inc. (Netli),[66] for an aggregate purchase price of $154.4 million.
On April 12, 2007, Akamai acquired Red Swoosh Inc.[67] for an aggregate purchase price of $18.7 million.[68]
On November 3, 2008, Akamai acquired aCerno Inc.,[68] for an aggregate purchase price of $90.8 million.[69]
On June 10, 2010, Akamai acquired Velocitude LLC,[70] for an aggregate purchase price of $12 million.[71]
On February 7, 2012, Akamai acquired Blaze Software, Inc.,[72] for an aggregate purchase price of $19.3 million.[73]
On March 6, 2012, Akamai acquired Cotendo, Inc.,[72] for an aggregate purchase price of $278.9 million.[74]
On September 13, 2012, Akamai acquired FastSoft, Inc.,[72] for an aggregate purchase price of $14.4 million.[75]
On December 4, 2012, Akamai acquired Verivue, Inc.,[72] for an aggregate purchase price of $30.9 million.[76]
On November 8, 2013, Akamai acquired Velocius Networks[77] for an aggregate purchase price of $4.3 million.[78]
In February 2015, Akamai acquired Xerocole Inc., a domain name system technology company.[80]
On April 6, 2015, Akamai acquired Octoshape, a cloud OTT IPTV service provider,[81] for an undisclosed amount.[82]
On November 2, 2015, Akamai acquired Bloxx, a provider of Secure Web Gateway (SWG) technology,[83] for an undisclosed amount.[84]
On September 28, 2016, Akamai acquired Concord Systems, a provider of technology for the high performance processing of data at scale,[85] for an undisclosed amount.[86]
On October 4, 2016, Akamai acquired Soha Systems, an enterprise secure access delivered as a service provider,[87] for an undisclosed amount.[88]
On December 19, 2016, Akamai acquired Cyberfend, a bot and automation detection solutions provider,[89] for an undisclosed amount.[90]
On March 29, 2017, Akamai acquired SOASTA, a digital performance management company based in Mountain View, CA, for an undisclosed all-cash amount.[91]
On October 11, 2017, Akamai acquired Nominum, a carrier-grade DNS and DHCP provider and one of the major players in the creation of the modern DNS, for an undisclosed all-cash amount.[92]
On January 24, 2019, Akamai acquired CIAM provider Janrain.[93]
In October 2019, Akamai agreed to acquire security software provider ChameleonX for $20 million.[94][95]
On October 27, 2020, Akamai acquired IoT and mobile security provider Asavie.[96]
One of Akamai's patents covers delivering electronic data using a CDN. Internet Web site proprietors (content providers) contract with Akamai to deliver their sites' content to individual Internet users. The patented method permits large files, such as video and music files, to be accessed more quickly.[non-primary source needed]
Akamai's patent was written in a way that called for or permitted actions by multiple persons or entities, such as the content-provider customer and the company providing the CDN service.[100] Akamai's competitor Limelight operated its allegedly infringing service in that manner—it performed most steps of the patented process, and its customers performed a so-called tagging step. Akamai sued Limelight for patent infringement, but the court ruled that a method patent could be infringed upon only when a single actor performed all the steps, overturning a $40 million jury verdict in Akamai's favor.
The case reached the Supreme Court, which returned it to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; however, with an invitation to re-evaluate its rule, if it chose to do so, that all the steps of a method had to be performed by a single actor for there to be infringement. On remand, the Federal Circuit considered the matter en banc (all active circuit judges) and modified its rule. It now held that a patent could also be directly infringed upon if "an alleged infringer conditions participation in an activity or receipt of a benefit upon performance of a step or steps of a patented method and establishes the manner or timing of that performance". On that basis, the Federal Circuit reinstated the $40 million jury verdict, saying that "Akamai presented substantial evidence demonstrating that Limelight conditions its customers' use of its CDN upon its customers' performance of" the steps that Limelight does not itself perform. It was considered a substantial change in patent law.[citation needed]
Controversies
In 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged a former executive at Akamai Technologies for illegally tipping non-public information about the company's financial predicament as part of the insider trading scheme operated by now-imprisoned Galleon Management hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam.[101]
The National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation have reportedly used Facebook's Akamai CDN to collect information on Facebook users.[102] This report appears to show intelligence analysts intercepting communications between Facebook and its CDN provider, but does not indicate Akamai as being complicit in this process.
According to researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and California-Berkeley, University College London, and International Computer Science Institute-Berkeley, Akamai has been blocking access to web sites for visitors using Tor.[103][104] This feature, known as 'network lists,' is optional for and implemented by customers of Akamai, and is a feature common to many major IT vendors that provide network security feeds, such as Emerging Threats, which provides such a feed for free.[104]
Key scientific publications
These papers in scientific conferences and journals describe Akamai's technology in greater detail:
^It is usually possible, however, to write such method patent claims in a way that all steps are performed by a single actor, for example, by replacing a step of sending a signal to the person performing the other steps with a step, instead, of receiving that signal. See, e.g., Michael Dzwonczyk Bulletproofing Method Claims for Post-Limelight Enforcement (Feb. 2014). Dzwonczyk asserts that the patent claim "could easily have been rewritten as a single-actor method claim that would not require the performance of any step by a second actor," and provides a rewritten version. See also Harold Wegner, Akamai II: Direct Infringement Déjà Vu (Aug. 2014) at 20-21, to similar effect.
US$3.81 billion (2023)
US$637 million (2023)
