Akamai Technologies Explained

Akamai Technologies, Inc.
Type:	Public
Revenue:	(2023)
Operating Income:	US$637 million (2023)
Net Income:	US$548 million (2023)
Assets:	US$9.90 billion (2023)
Equity:	US$4.60 billion (2023)
Num Employees:	(2023)
Footnotes:	^[1]
Module:	Child: yes Asn: 20940

Akamai Technologies, Inc. is an American company specialized in content delivery network^[2] (CDN), cybersecurity, DDoS mitigation, and cloud services.^{[3] [4]} It is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

History

The company was named after akamai, which means 'clever,' or more colloquially, 'cool' in Hawaiian. Co-founder Daniel M. Lewin found the term in a Hawaiian-English dictionary after a colleague's suggestion.^[5]

Akamai Technologies entered the 1998 MIT $50K competition with a business proposition based on their research on consistent hashing,^[6] and was selected as one of the finalists.^[7] 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.^[8] Akamai Technologies was incorporated on August 20, 1998.^[9] 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.^{[10] [11]} The company launched its commercial service in April 1999 and was listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market from October 29, 1999.^[12] On July 1, 2001, Akamai was added to the Russell 3000 Index and Russell 2000 Index.^[13]

On September 11, 2001, co-founder Daniel M. Lewin died in the September 11 attacks at the age of 31 when he was stabbed by one of the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center. He was seated closest to the hijackers and may have tried to stop them.^[14]

Arabic news network Al-Jazeera was an Akamai customer from March 28, 2003 to April 2, 2003, when Akamai decided to end the relationship,^[15] which the network's English-language managing editor claimed was due to "political pressure".^[16]

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.^[17] Under his leadership, it grew to $1.37 billion in revenue.^[18]

In July 2007, Akamai was added to the S&P 500 Index.^[19]

In 2013, co-founder Tom Leighton was elected chief executive officer, replacing Sagan.^[20]

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.^[21] In 2014 it was reported that the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation used Facebook's Akamai CDN to collect information on Facebook users.^[22]

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.^[23] Long-time chief security officer (CSO) Andy Ellis announced he would leave in March 2021.^[24]

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.^[25]

Technologies

Akamai Intelligent Edge Platform

The Akamai Intelligent Platform is a distributed cloud computing platform that operates worldwide, a network of over approximately 365,000 servers in more than 135 countries.^[26] These servers reside on roughly 1,350 of the world's networks, gathering real-time information about traffic, congestion, and trouble spots. Each Akamai server is equipped with proprietary software that uses complex algorithms to process requests from nearby users.

Content delivery process

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^[27] and an IP address is retrieved. With the IP address, the browser can then directly contact the Akamai edge server for subsequent requests.^[28] In a content delivery network (CDN) structure, the domain name of the URL is translated by the mapping system^[29] into the IP address of an edge server to serve the content to the user.

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.^[30] 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.^[31] 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.^[32]

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.^{[33] [34]}

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.^[35]

Acquisitions

• On February 10, 2000, Akamai acquired Network24 Communications^[36] for 621,000 shares of common stock and $12.5 million in cash.^[37]
• On April 20, 2000, Akamai acquired InterVU Inc.^[38] 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.
• 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.^[39]
• On December 13, 2006, Akamai acquired Nine Systems, Inc.,^[40] for an aggregate purchase price of $157.5 million.^[41]
• On March 13, 2007, Akamai acquired Netli Inc. (Netli),^[42] for an aggregate purchase price of $154.4 million.
• On April 12, 2007, Akamai acquired Red Swoosh Inc.^[43] for an aggregate purchase price of $18.7 million.^[44]
• On November 3, 2008, Akamai acquired aCerno Inc., for an aggregate purchase price of $90.8 million.^[45]
• On June 10, 2010, Akamai acquired Velocitude LLC,^[46] for an aggregate purchase price of $12 million.^[47]
• On February 7, 2012, Akamai acquired Blaze Software, Inc.,^[48] for an aggregate purchase price of $19.3 million.^[49]
• On March 6, 2012, Akamai acquired Cotendo, Inc., for an aggregate purchase price of $278.9 million.^[50]
• On September 13, 2012, Akamai acquired FastSoft, Inc., for an aggregate purchase price of $14.4 million.^[51]
• On December 4, 2012, Akamai acquired Verivue, Inc., for an aggregate purchase price of $30.9 million.^[52]
• On November 8, 2013, Akamai acquired Velocius Networks^[53] for an aggregate purchase price of $4.3 million.^[54]
• In February 2014, Akamai acquired cyber security provider Prolexic Technologies for an aggregate purchase price of $390 million.^[55]
• In February 2015, Akamai acquired Xerocole Inc., a domain name system technology company.^[56]
• On April 6, 2015, Akamai acquired Octoshape, a cloud OTT IPTV service provider,^[57] for an undisclosed amount.^[58]
• On November 2, 2015, Akamai acquired Bloxx, a provider of Secure Web Gateway (SWG) technology,^[59] for an undisclosed amount.^[60]
• On September 28, 2016, Akamai acquired Concord Systems, a provider of technology for the high performance processing of data at scale,^[61] for an undisclosed amount.^[62]
• On October 4, 2016, Akamai acquired Soha Systems, an enterprise secure access delivered as a service provider,^[63] for an undisclosed amount.^[64]
• On December 19, 2016, Akamai acquired Cyberfend, a bot and automation detection solutions provider,^[65] for an undisclosed amount.^[66]
• On March 29, 2017, Akamai acquired SOASTA, a digital performance management company based in Mountain View, CA, for an undisclosed all-cash amount.^[67]
• 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.^[68]
• On January 24, 2019, Akamai acquired CIAM provider Janrain.^[69]
• In October 2019, Akamai agreed to acquire security software provider ChameleonX for $20 million.^{[70] [71]}
• On October 27, 2020, Akamai acquired IoT and mobile security provider Asavie.^[72]
• On February 1, 2021, Akamai acquired Inverse Inc. a Montreal Canadian based security company making an open source network access controller (NAC) called PacketFence.^[73]
• On September 29, 2021, Akamai Technologies acquired Guardicore for $600 million.^[74]
• On February 15, 2022, Akamai acquired Linode for $900 million.^[75]
• On May 7, 2024, Akamai announced its intent to acquire API Security vendor for $450 million.^[76] The deal was completed on June 25, 2024.^[77]

Key scientific publications

These papers in scientific conferences and journals describe Akamai's technology in greater detail:

• Karger, D., Lehman, E., Leighton, T., Panigrahy, R., Levine, M., Lewin, D. Consistent Hashing and Random Trees: Distributed Caching Protocols for Relieving Hot Spots on the World Wide Web. ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 1997, pp. 654–663.
• J. Dilley, B. Maggs, J. Parikh, H. Prokop, R. Sitaraman, and B. Weihl. "Globally Distributed Content Delivery", IEEE Internet Computing, September/October 2002, pp. 50–58.
• Bruce Maggs and Ramesh Sitaraman. "Algorithmic nuggets in content delivery". ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Volume=45, Issue=3, 2015.
• F. Chen, R. Sitaraman, and M. Torres. "End-User Mapping: Next Generation Request Routing for Content Delivery". ACM SIGCOMM conference, Aug 2015.
• Kyle Schomp, Onkar Bhardwaj, Eymen Kurdoglu, Mashooq Muhaimen, and Ramesh K. Sitaraman. "Akamai DNS: Providing Authoritative Answers to the World's Queries", ``ACM SIGCOMM conference, Aug 2020.
• D. Gillman, Y. Lin, B. Maggs and R. K. Sitaraman. "Protecting Websites from Attack with Secure Delivery Networks", IEEE Computer, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 26–34, Apr. 2015.

See also

• Akamai Techs., Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Akamai Technologies, Inc. 2023 Form 10-K Annual Report . . February 28, 2024.
2. J. Dilley, B. Maggs, J. Parikh, H. Prokop, R. Sitaraman, and B. Weihl. Web site: Globally Distributed Content Delivery, IEEE Internet Computing, September/October 2002, pp. 50–58 .
3. Web site: Hendy . Nina . March 3, 2020 . How to avoid falling victim to a cyber attack . April 16, 2020 . The Sydney Morning Herald . en.
4. News: March 17, 2020 . Akamai Stock Finds Support On Video Streaming Surge Investor's Business Daily . en-US . Investor's Business Daily . April 16, 2020.
5. Web site: 2014-04-28 . How these nine Mass. tech companies got their names . 2022-06-17 . Boston Business Journal.
6. . 2015 . Algorithmic nuggets in content delivery . ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review . 45 . 3.
7. Web site: May 13, 1998 . Two teams win top prize in MIT $50K contest . June 11, 2014 . MIT News.
8. News: Akamai Technologies Inc . Reuters . dead . June 11, 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141018154226/http://in.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyProfile?symbol=AKAM.O . October 18, 2014.
9. Web site: Company History . www.akamai.com.
10. Web site: Akamai Technologies, Inc. History . June 9, 2014 . fundinguniverse.com.
11. News: Conrades to resign from Akamai . Boston Business Journal . January 5, 2005 . January 11, 2015.
12. Web site: AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES INC (AKAM) IPO . June 16, 2014 . NASDAQ.
13. Web site: July 17, 2001 . Akamai Technologies, Inc. Added to the Russell 3000 Index and Russell 2000 Index . June 20, 2014 . February 4, 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140204042116/http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Akamai+Technologies%2c+Inc.+Added+to+the+Russell+3000+Index+and+Russell...-a076580202 . dead .
14. News: Leopold . Todd . September 11, 2013 . The legacy of Danny Lewin, the first victims of 9/11 . CNN . July 22, 2014.
15. Web site: Akamai ends Al Jazeera server support . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20121104060757/http://news.cnet.com/1200-1035-995546.html . November 4, 2012 . April 2, 2009 . news.cnet.com.
16. Web site: April 8, 2003 . Al Jazeera Denied Akamai Services . https://web.archive.org/web/20131107204300/http://tech.mit.edu/V123/N17/17aljazeera.17n.html . November 7, 2013 . April 2, 2009 . Tech.mit.edu.
17. News: Frier . Sarah . Womack . Brian . April 26, 2012 . Akamai Says CEO Sagan to Leave; Profit Less Than Estimates . Bloomberg . May 29, 2014.
18. Web site: Akamai Technologies, Inc. (AKAM) Income Statement . May 29, 2014 . Yahoo! Finance.
19. Web site: Frier . Sarah . Mulier . Thomas . July 10, 2007 . Akamai Names Leighton CEO After Eight-Month Search . November 17, 2020 . DataCenterKnowledge.
20. Web site: Frier . Sarah . Mulier . Thomas . December 17, 2012 . Akamai Names Leighton CEO After Eight-Month Search . https://archive.today/20140925205929/http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-12-17/akamai-chief-scientist-leighton-to-become-ceo-after-sagan-exit . dead . September 25, 2014 . June 19, 2014 . BloombergBusinessweek.
21. Web site: September 20, 2013 . SEC Charges Former Technology Company Executive for Role in Rajaratnam Insider Trading Scheme . VentureBeat.
22. Web site: Harrison Weber . May 15, 2014 . Facebook & Akamai respond to NSA slides alleging massive CDN vulnerability . VentureBeat.
23. News: Gagliordi . Natalie . 9 February 2021 . Akamai tops Q4 expectations, announces reorganization and new CTO . ZDNet . 10 February 2021.
24. 1359249973330731013 . csoandy . Thread : Andy Ellis on Twitter....
25. Web site: Akamai Opens New HQ In Cambridge . www.wbur.org. November 2019 .
26. Web site: Facts & Figures Akamai . April 16, 2020 . www.akamai.com . en-US.
27. Kyle Schomp, Onkar Bhardwaj, Eymen Kurdoglu, Mashooq Muhaimen, and Ramesh K. Sitaraman. Web site: Akamai DNS: Providing Authoritative Answers to the World's Queries, ACM SIGCOMM conference, Aug 2020. .
28. Web site: Zakas . Nicholas C. . November 29, 2011 . How content delivery networks (CDNs) work . NCZOnline.
29. Web site: End-User Mapping: Next Generation Request Routing for Content Delivery, by F. Chen, R. Sitaraman, and M. Torres, ACM SIGCOMM conference, Aug 2015. . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20170812155713/http://people.cs.umass.edu/~ramesh/Site/PUBLICATIONS_files/eum_embedded.pdf . 2017-08-12 . 2019-10-31.
30. Web site: June 6, 2022. Countries in which Akamai maintains Server Points of Presence . October 12, 2022.
31. Web site: August 19, 2011 . Inside Akamai and the scary future of streaming video, GigaOm. . https://web.archive.org/web/20121211015527/http://gigaom.com/video/inside-akamai-and-the-scary-future-of-streaming-video/ . December 11, 2012 . March 12, 2012.
32. Web site: January 26, 2018 . Download Delivery . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20180118025837/https://www.akamai.com/us/en/products/media-delivery/download-delivery.jsp#download_delivery_overview . January 18, 2018 . January 26, 2018 . Akamai Technologies . mdy-all.
33. Web site: Ben Homer . January 26, 2010 . Akamai Using P2P for Enhanced Video Delivery . https://web.archive.org/web/20130515021051/http://www.onlinevideowatch.com/akamai-using-p2p-for-enhance-video/ . May 15, 2013 . September 2, 2011 . Online Video Watch.
34. Web site: Akamai NetSession Interface – Design Principles . https://web.archive.org/web/20131029192947/http://www.akamai.com/html/misc/akamai_client/netsession_interface_design.html . October 29, 2013 . September 2, 2011 . Akamai Technologies.
35. Web site: October 9, 2013 . Akamai Unveils Open Platform Initiative at Akamai Edge 2013 Customer Conference . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20141022063941/http://finance.yahoo.com/news/akamai-releases-first-quarter-2014-103000375.html . October 22, 2014 . September 23, 2014 . Yahoo! Finance . mdy-all.
36. Web site: January 18, 2000 . Akamai to Acquire Network24 Communications . September 23, 2014 . StreamingMedia.com.
37. Web site: Akamai Annual Report 2000 . Akamai Technologies, Inc..
38. News: Richtymyer . Richard . February 7, 2000 . Akamai buys InterVu . CNN Money . September 23, 2014.
39. Web site: Akamai Annual Report 2005 . Akamai Technologies, Inc..
40. Web site: Kawamoto . Dawn . November 20, 2006 . Akamai to buy Nine Systems . September 23, 2014 . CNET News.
41. Web site: Akamai Annual Report 2006 . Akamai Technologies, Inc..
42. Web site: Gross . Grant . February 5, 2007 . Akamai to acquire Netli for about $170 million . September 23, 2014 . NetworkWorld.
43. Web site: Arrington . Michael . April 12, 2007 . Payday for Red Swoosh: $15 million from Akamai . September 23, 2014 . Tech Crunch.
44. Web site: Akamai Annual Report 2009 . Akamai Technologies, Inc..
45. Web site: Kaplan . David . October 21, 2008 . Branching Out, Akamai Acquires Ad Targeter Acerno For $95 Million . September 23, 2014 . Tech Crunch . October 6, 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141006115936/https://gigaom.com/2008/10/21/419-branching-out-akamai-acquires-ad-targeter-acerno-for-95-million/ . dead .
46. Web site: Akamai Annual Report 2010 . Akamai Technologies, Inc..
47. Web site: Boutin . Paul . June 10, 2010 . Akamai acquires mobile services company Velocitude . September 23, 2014 . VentureBeat.
48. Web site: Akamai Annual Report 2012 . Akamai Technologies, Inc..
49. Web site: Huang . Gregory T. . February 8, 2012 . Akamai Buys Blaze as Web Optimization Heats Up in Boston . September 23, 2014 . Xconomy.
50. Web site: Wauters . Robin . December 22, 2011 . Done Deal – Akamai Buys Rival Cotendo For $268 Million . September 23, 2014 . Tech Crunch.
51. News: McCarthy . Maureen . September 14, 2012 . Akamai Technologies snaps up FastSoft . Boston Business Journal . September 23, 2014.
52. Web site: Whittaker . Zack . November 13, 2012 . Akamai expands digital content delivery network, acquires Verivue . September 23, 2014 . ZDNet.
53. Web site: Akamai Annual Report 2013 . Akamai Technologies, Inc..
54. Web site: Dignan . Larry . November 11, 2013 . Akamai buys Velocious Networks . September 23, 2014 . ZDNet.
55. Web site: Lunden . Ingrid . December 2, 2013 . Akamai Buys DDoS Prevention Specialist Prolexic For $370M To Ramp Up Security Offerings For Enterprises . September 23, 2014 . TechCrunch.
56. News: Castellanos . Sara . March 2, 2015 . Akamai Technologies acquires Colorado domain name system tech firm Xerocole . September 20, 2015.
57. Web site: Media Delivery Solutions for Streaming Video and Software Delivery - Akamai . www.akamai.com.
58. Web site: Akamai Acquires Octoshape to Optimize Streaming Video - 040615 - Akamai . www.akamai.com.
59. Web site: Bloxx - Real Time Web & Email Filtering . www.bloxx.com.
60. Web site: Akamai Acquires Bloxx for Cloud Security - Akamai . www.akamai.com.
61. Web site: Concord: Concord.io . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20161217041717/http://concord.io/ . December 17, 2016 . January 6, 2017.
62. Web site: Akamai Acquires Data Processing Provider Concord Systems - Akamai . www.akamai.com.
63. Web site: Secure Application Access - Akamai . www.akamai.com.
64. Web site: Akamai Acquires Soha Systems for Secure Remote Access to Enterprise Applications - Akamai . www.akamai.com.
65. Web site: Bot Manager - Akamai . www.akamai.com.
66. Web site: about/news/press/2016-press/akamai-acquires-cyberfend.jsp . www.akamai.com.
67. News: March 29, 2017 . Akamai agrees to acquire SOASTA . Reuters . October 11, 2017.
68. News: October 11, 2017 . Akamai agrees to acquire Nominum . Reuters . October 11, 2017.
69. Web site: Akamai Completes Acquisition Of Customer Identity Access Management Company Janrain Inc. . December 6, 2020 . www.Akamai.com.
70. Web site: Akamai Technologies Announces Acquisition Of ChameleonX - Quick Facts Markets Insider . March 20, 2020 . markets.businessinsider.com . Insider Inc. and finanzen.net GmbH (Imprint) . RTTNews.
71. Web site: Akamai Technologies Announces Acquisition Of ChameleonX - Quick Facts . March 20, 2020 . www.nasdaq.com . Nasdaq, Inc . en . RTTNews.
72. Web site: Akamai Technologies Advances 5G Security Strategy With Acquisition Of Asavie .
73. Web site: Akamai Technologies Acquires Inverse Inc., Adds To Zero Trust Security Platform . 2021-06-22.
74. Web site: Mirchevska . Sara . 2021-10-04 . Akamai Technologies Acquires Guardicore in A$600 Million Worth Deal . HostAdvice.
75. Web site: 2022-02-15 . Akamai To Acquire Linode to Provide Businesses with a Developer-friendly and Massively-distributed Platform to Build, Run and Secure Next Generation Applications . Akamai.
76. Web site: Akamai to Acquire API Protection Startup Noname Security for $450 Million . SecurityWeek . 2024-05-07 . 2024-05-16.
77. Web site: Akamai doubles down on API security with Noname acquisition . SDxCentral . 2024-06-27 . 2024-07-24.