The Akamai Blog

At Akamai, we all contribute to our diverse, inclusive, and engaged culture. One in which we each have a voice and are empowered to have a meaningful impact on our business and its direction. It's by fostering this culture across teams that we're able to achieve the company's guiding principles. For all of us, it means putting our clients, employees and communities front and center in our daily work.

As I reflect on 2020 and the way in which the pandemic affected the business world, what stands out to me is the incredible increase in streaming content consumed on the internet. We've seen launches of some of the highest-profile streaming services to date between late 2019 and 2020. People are continuously streaming content and we need to consider the impact that increased viewership is having on the world. When you sit down to catch a movie or binge watch that latest series, do you consider the effect that streamed content has on the rest of the world? We will continue to see an uptick in carbon emissions from the power required to serve online content: servers, network hardware, and the energy needed to keep it all cool.

At long last, Blue Water Farm is generating revenue! Around 20 acres of our land consists of dense, mature hardwood of oak, maple, and beech, and we were able to contract to sell 65 maple and 25 oak trees to a logging company. I won't be retiring from Akamai any time soon from our logging windfall, but it's nice to see some revenue from our land, and clearing mature trees is a part of good responsible forest management.

On October 2020, the Akamai Technical Enablement and Education (TE&E) Team -- responsible for creating product-training certifications for employees (Global Services and Support [GSS]), customers (Akamai University), and channel partners (Advanced Partner Enablement) -- won its second industry award for program design, functionality, and impact.

In terms of cyberthreats and digital risk, 2020 has been all about distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

This blog post -- the fourth in a series -- will discuss how smart DNS resolvers can enhance ongoing ISP and MNO network transformation efforts, such as the transition to 5G, better integration of Wi-Fi, and new network designs that optimize the edge to improve service delivery and network efficiency.

We introduce a novel machine learning approach that uses network flows to generate application-level representation of public and private cloud networks. This will greatly simplify the journey to a micro-segmented network.

So, you're starting your own game studio. This is an incredible opportunity! You and your team get to start fresh and build the game of your dreams! But, let's be honest, if you have just founded your own game studio, odds are that you're not a technical architect. You may have some technical know-how, but studio founders typically come from the creative side.

Microservice architecture has transformed the way we develop and operate our applications. Microservices aren't a technology or a programming language. Instead, they create a structure for designing and building applications based on the idea that the individual functions of a website should operate independently. From this simple concept comes a multitude of benefits including:

The presence of public "over the top" DNS resolution alternatives is a strong motivator for ISPs to invest in making their DNS resolution infrastructure the best that it can be. Resolvers are the glue that binds subscribers to their fixed and mobile broadband services. Operators of public DNS services will play a significant role in controlling the user experience and gain goodwill if they succeed in persuading subscribers to use their resolvers. Worse, when public DNS services fail, it's probable that subscribers will blame their service provider because they may not understand the critical role DNS plays, or may not even remember they switched their DNS settings!

Unfortunately, today's sophisticated web application threats have gained some advantages over typical WAFs: Favorable odds -- WAFs must correctly identify attacks 100% of the time, whereas attackers have the luxury of only needing to find a single bypass or evasion Temporary fixes -- Many WAFs use a "whack-a-mole" response tactic by only denying the individual attack request, allowing the attacker to make repeated attempts Persistence -- If left unimpeded, attackers may eventually find some type of payload obfuscation that minimizes detection effectiveness The confluence of these advantages should concern WAF customers. Let's take a closer look at the typical web attacker methodology to see why.

The presence of public "over-the-top" DNS resolution alternatives is a strong motivator for internet service providers (ISPs) to invest in making their DNS resolution infrastructure the best that it can be. Resolvers are the glue that binds subscribers to their fixed and mobile broadband services.

2020 has shown both record-busting bps and pps attacks and the most prolific DDoS extortion campaign recorded by Akamai.

By Gal Bitensky, Executive Summary Link scanners are a critical component in multiple classes of security products including email security suites, websites that suggest direct inspection of a suspicious link, and others. Behind the scenes, these services use web clients...

2020 was a challenging year for many of us, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted life and introduced challenges in almost all elements of living. 2020 was also challenging from a cybersecurity point of view, as nearly the entire workforce moved...

In part 1 of this series, I drew the architectural distinction between a centralized cloud platform and a distributed edge network. This is an important foundation upon which to explain the difference between cloud computing and edge computing. The two serve very different and complementary purposes. However, in my experience, business leaders, product owners, and application developers often mistake them as competitive.

This is Part 2 of a 3-part blog series highlighting some of the distinguishing aspects of Akamai's DNS services, Edge DNS and Global Traffic Management.

This is Part 2 of a three-part blog series highlighting some of the distinguishing aspects of Akamai's Domain Name System (DNS) services, Edge DNS and Global Traffic Management.

This is Part 1 of a 3-part blog series highlighting some of the distinguishing aspects of Akamai's DNS services, Edge DNS and Global Traffic Management.

HTTP Adaptive Segmented (HAS) streaming began to be used at scale from 2008 to 2012, with the advent of Move Networks, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, Apple HLS, Adobe HDS, and MPEG DASH. With the typical 10s segment durations of the day, livestream latencies (measuring latency as the time from an action being filmed to that same action being displayed on a device's screen) remained in the 30s to 60s range, trailing broadcast by a significant degree.