Akamai Introduces Advanced Communications Protocol For Accelerating Dynamic Applications

Company pioneers solutions for optimizing the performance of dynamic applications across the Internet’s “middle mile.”

CAMBRIDGE, MA .— Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading global service provider for accelerating content and applications online, today announced the introduction of the Akamai Protocol. As a core component of Akamai’s distributed computing platform, the Akamai Protocol combines the high-performance application acceleration technology developed from the company’s March 2007 acquisition of Netli, Inc. with Akamai’s worldwide network of servers and SureRouteSM technology.

The highly differentiated Akamai Protocol comprises both transport-layer optimizations that address challenges such as packet loss and congestion, as well as application-layer optimizations that facilitate caching, intelligent prefetching, and compression. As the leading managed services provider to accelerate dynamic applications across the Internet, Akamai enables its enterprise customers to increase user adoption of applications for increased productivity and revenue and improve the conversion rates for rich, dynamic retail environments.

The Akamai Protocol is a transparent technology component of Akamai services that support dynamic application acceleration, such as Dynamic Site Accelerator and Web Application Accelerator.

“Our strategy from day one of the Netli acquisition was to bring the best technologies from both companies together,” said Chris Schoettle, executive vice president of Technology and Networks, Akamai. “The Akamai Protocol is embedded in the fabric of our EdgePlatformSM Internet overlay infrastructure, creating a one-of-a-kind application delivery network for the optimized acceleration and availability of dynamic business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) applications.”

As dynamic applications and content become increasingly prevalent, IT departments are challenged to solve the latency and availability problems that detrimentally affect applications delivered over the Internet. Dynamic enterprise applications require acceleration techniques aside from caching and include supply chain management, extranet portals, machine-to-machine web services and software-as-a-service delivery models. Affected commerce applications include rich internet applications such as AJAX-enabled Web sites. These applications typically require acceleration techniques that are more sophisticated than caching.

The Akamai EdgePlatform now includes the following network and software components:

* With more than 28,000 edge servers connected within nearly 1,000 networks, Akamai’s infrastructure is located in close proximity to both end users and customer’s origin server regions. Akamai uses an intelligent dynamic mapping system to direct each end-user and origin location to an optimal Edge server – in essence serving as an on-ramp and off-ramp to the Akamai network – improving performance and reliability of applications delivered over the Internet. The global array of servers forms a transparent bi-nodal connection between users and the origin server region that is optimized using the Akamai Protocol.
* SureRoute mitigates the inefficiencies of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) by leveraging the Akamai EdgePlatform’s massively distributed network of servers and Internet intelligence to make performance-based routing decisions between the end users and the origin server region.
* The Akamai Protocol is used across the bi-nodal Akamai server paths established between end users and the origin server region to address inefficiencies in standard Internet protocols such as transmission control protocol (TCP) and hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). The Akamai Protocol reduces the number of round trips taken over a SureRoute path, which enhances the performance of dynamic applications and delivery of content across the Internet’s middle mile.



“When the core protocols of the Internet were created more than 30 years ago no one could have reasonably imagined the role they would play in today’s world, and they certainly weren’t designed to meet modern requirements” said Peter Christy, Principal Analyst of Internet Research Group. “Over the last decade Akamai has done a remarkable job of finding innovative means of adding capabilities on top of the Internet that make up for the deficiencies of the original protocols. The Akamai Protocol is the latest contribution to that toolkit.”

To read the Akamai EdgePlatform for Application Delivery white paper, please visit: www.akamai.com/AppDeliveryWP .

About Akamai
Akamai® is the leading global service provider for accelerating content and applications online. Thousands of organizations have formed trusted relationships with Akamai, improving their revenue and reducing costs by maximizing the performance of their online businesses. Leveraging the Akamai EdgePlatform, these organizations gain business advantage today, and have the foundation for the emerging Web solutions of tomorrow. Akamai is “The Trusted Choice for Online Business.” For more information, visit www.akamai.com.

Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
The release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai’s management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the effects of any attempts to intentionally disrupt our services or network by hackers or others, failure to have available sufficient transmission capacity, changes in technologies related to Web-based applications or Akamai’s managed services, a failure of Akamai’s network infrastructure, and other factors that are discussed in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.

Akamai, EdgePlatform, Akamai Protocol and SureRoute are either registered trademarks or service marks of Akamai Technologies, Inc.