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Akamai Announces Unique Global Traffic Management Service to Increase Web Site Availability and Performance
Unique to the market, FirstPoint is built on enhancements to Akamai's core intelligent routing technology and combines real-time global Internet monitoring with performance data on a content provider's Web servers at distributed locations. Using comprehensive analysis of real-time data, FirstPoint proactively assembles and continuously refreshes maps used to direct inbound Web traffic so that it reaches the server location best able to handle each individual user request. This offers a significant advantage to content providers seeking to maximize the performance and availability of a mirrored Web site. The FirstPoint service is fully interoperable with local load balancing solutions and is a perfect addition for sites that use local load balancers.
"Akamai continues to aggressively create and deliver new and innovative services targeted at building a better Internet. FirstPoint is the latest such service, and we are delighted by the level of positive feedback we are receiving from our customer trials," said George Kurian, vice president and general manager of content delivery services, Akamai. "As our customers' businesses evolve to a global scale, Akamai remains committed to tailoring its services to meet their growing needs. With FirstPoint's unique ability to optimize the initial connection for an end user, our customers can be ensured that they are delivering their users the best online experience possible."
IBM First Reseller of FirstPoint
IBM Global Services expanded its relationship with Akamai by becoming the first reseller of the FirstPoint service. "This allows our customers to deliver higher levels of availability that are crucial to successful e-business," said Warren Hart, Director, Global Offerings for Web Hosting, IBM Global Services.
With the introduction of FirstPoint, Akamai is addressing the market's growing need for global traffic management services on the Web. A recent survey by the Internet Research Group indicates that of the Web's largest content providers, more than 80 percent already host or plan to host Web servers in multiple locations.
A Perfect Complement to FreeFlowSM
Akamai's FirstPoint service is designed to work seamlessly with FreeFlow, Akamai's flagship service for the rapid and reliable delivery of Web content, streaming media, and Internet applications. FreeFlow off-loads rich content from a central web site and distributes it throughout the Akamai network so it can be served more quickly and efficiently to end users. When used together, FirstPoint improves the availability and performance of user visits to a content provider's mirrored servers while FreeFlow optimizes the delivery of content to end users, ensuring the best online experience possible.
"As the most trafficked site on the Web, Yahoo! is committed to providing the 145 million individuals that access our site every month with maximum levels of reliability, speed, and performance. We work closely with Akamai to help us maintain such levels of performance," said David Filo, co-founder and chief Yahoo. "As we have servers in multiple geographic locations, Akamai's FirstPoint service does an excellent job in helping us to ensure that our users continue to have the best possible experience every time they use Yahoo!."
"Akamai's FirstPoint service could not have arrived at a better time for Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch. With our increased traffic flow, an intelligent service such as FirstPoint is key to optimizing our end users experience," said Sean Moriarty, vice president of Internet Systems for Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch, Inc. "Combined with our use of Akamai's FreeFlow, we can deliver the best possible experience for our customers. We look forward to leveraging Akamai's platform as we evolve our service offerings."
FirstPoint Benefits
FirstPoint brings content providers and end users numerous benefits including:
High Web Site Availability -- FirstPoint constantly monitors real-time conditions and directs traffic to the server location that offers the best availability and performance. Both latency and packet loss are measured which allows FirstPoint to detect congestion often missed by solutions that depend on latency alone. By avoiding congestion and downed resources, FirstPoint drives down user abandonment rates, allowing the content provider to capture eyeballs and revenue that would otherwise have been lost.
Improved Responsiveness for End Users -- In customer trials where FirstPoint was compared to less advanced forms of load balancing solutions, FirstPoint increased the average performance of a connection between end users and Web properties by 30-35 percent. The end user benefits from the increased responsiveness of the Web site and the content provider enjoys more efficient distribution of end user requests, which in turn, maximizes Web site resources.
No Single Point of Failure -- Akamai's architecture is built to be fault tolerant. Using a distributed architecture and redundancy of every component throughout the system, FirstPoint offers the highest level of reliability. Managed Service -- As a managed service, FirstPoint relieves content providers from the responsibilities associated with traffic management including evaluating, purchasing, learning, installing, maintaining, and housing hardware solutions. Faster deployment, drastically reduced staffing requirements, access to the latest technology, and the elimination of the risk and high costs of hardware obsolescence provide further benefit. Akamai's Network Operations Center monitors FirstPoint service 24x7x365.
Availability and Pricing
FirstPoint is available immediately. Typical list pricing for FirstPoint is $5,500 per month, per location.
About Akamai
Akamai is the foremost provider of global, high performance services for the delivery of Internet content, streaming media, and applications, serving over 1,000 customers. Akamai has the broadest deployment of servers for content, streaming media, and applications delivery with more than 4,000 servers in over 45 countries directly connected to more than 160 different telecommunications networks. Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is Hawaiian for intelligent, clever and cool.
| Contacts: |
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| Jeff Young Akamai Technologies 617-250-3913 jyoung@akamai.com |
--or-- | Caryn Converse Akamai Technologies 617-250-4661 converse@akamai.com |
- FirstPointSM service, built on Akamai's EdgeAdvantageTM platform, already in use by Yahoo! and TicketMaster Online-CitySearch, Inc. to optimally direct traffic to distributed sites
- IBM Global Services Becomes First Reseller of FirstPoint
Unique to the market, FirstPoint is built on enhancements to Akamai's core intelligent routing technology and combines real-time global Internet monitoring with performance data on a content provider's Web servers at distributed locations. Using comprehensive analysis of real-time data, FirstPoint proactively assembles and continuously refreshes maps used to direct inbound Web traffic so that it reaches the server location best able to handle each individual user request. This offers a significant advantage to content providers seeking to maximize the performance and availability of a mirrored Web site. The FirstPoint service is fully interoperable with local load balancing solutions and is a perfect addition for sites that use local load balancers.
"Akamai continues to aggressively create and deliver new and innovative services targeted at building a better Internet. FirstPoint is the latest such service, and we are delighted by the level of positive feedback we are receiving from our customer trials," said George Kurian, vice president and general manager of content delivery services, Akamai. "As our customers' businesses evolve to a global scale, Akamai remains committed to tailoring its services to meet their growing needs. With FirstPoint's unique ability to optimize the initial connection for an end user, our customers can be ensured that they are delivering their users the best online experience possible."
IBM First Reseller of FirstPoint
IBM Global Services expanded its relationship with Akamai by becoming the first reseller of the FirstPoint service. "This allows our customers to deliver higher levels of availability that are crucial to successful e-business," said Warren Hart, Director, Global Offerings for Web Hosting, IBM Global Services.
With the introduction of FirstPoint, Akamai is addressing the market's growing need for global traffic management services on the Web. A recent survey by the Internet Research Group indicates that of the Web's largest content providers, more than 80 percent already host or plan to host Web servers in multiple locations.
A Perfect Complement to FreeFlowSM
Akamai's FirstPoint service is designed to work seamlessly with FreeFlow, Akamai's flagship service for the rapid and reliable delivery of Web content, streaming media, and Internet applications. FreeFlow off-loads rich content from a central web site and distributes it throughout the Akamai network so it can be served more quickly and efficiently to end users. When used together, FirstPoint improves the availability and performance of user visits to a content provider's mirrored servers while FreeFlow optimizes the delivery of content to end users, ensuring the best online experience possible.
"As the most trafficked site on the Web, Yahoo! is committed to providing the 145 million individuals that access our site every month with maximum levels of reliability, speed, and performance. We work closely with Akamai to help us maintain such levels of performance," said David Filo, co-founder and chief Yahoo. "As we have servers in multiple geographic locations, Akamai's FirstPoint service does an excellent job in helping us to ensure that our users continue to have the best possible experience every time they use Yahoo!."
"Akamai's FirstPoint service could not have arrived at a better time for Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch. With our increased traffic flow, an intelligent service such as FirstPoint is key to optimizing our end users experience," said Sean Moriarty, vice president of Internet Systems for Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch, Inc. "Combined with our use of Akamai's FreeFlow, we can deliver the best possible experience for our customers. We look forward to leveraging Akamai's platform as we evolve our service offerings."
FirstPoint Benefits
FirstPoint brings content providers and end users numerous benefits including:
High Web Site Availability -- FirstPoint constantly monitors real-time conditions and directs traffic to the server location that offers the best availability and performance. Both latency and packet loss are measured which allows FirstPoint to detect congestion often missed by solutions that depend on latency alone. By avoiding congestion and downed resources, FirstPoint drives down user abandonment rates, allowing the content provider to capture eyeballs and revenue that would otherwise have been lost.
Improved Responsiveness for End Users -- In customer trials where FirstPoint was compared to less advanced forms of load balancing solutions, FirstPoint increased the average performance of a connection between end users and Web properties by 30-35 percent. The end user benefits from the increased responsiveness of the Web site and the content provider enjoys more efficient distribution of end user requests, which in turn, maximizes Web site resources.
No Single Point of Failure -- Akamai's architecture is built to be fault tolerant. Using a distributed architecture and redundancy of every component throughout the system, FirstPoint offers the highest level of reliability. Managed Service -- As a managed service, FirstPoint relieves content providers from the responsibilities associated with traffic management including evaluating, purchasing, learning, installing, maintaining, and housing hardware solutions. Faster deployment, drastically reduced staffing requirements, access to the latest technology, and the elimination of the risk and high costs of hardware obsolescence provide further benefit. Akamai's Network Operations Center monitors FirstPoint service 24x7x365.
Availability and Pricing
FirstPoint is available immediately. Typical list pricing for FirstPoint is $5,500 per month, per location.
About Akamai
Akamai is the foremost provider of global, high performance services for the delivery of Internet content, streaming media, and applications, serving over 1,000 customers. Akamai has the broadest deployment of servers for content, streaming media, and applications delivery with more than 4,000 servers in over 45 countries directly connected to more than 160 different telecommunications networks. Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is Hawaiian for intelligent, clever and cool.
