AKAMAI UNVEILS EDGESUITE FOR BUSINESS CONTINUITY
New solution-set of integrated services enables secure e-business
infrastructure for uninterrupted global Web operations
CAMBRIDGE, MA - December 10, 2001 - Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:
AKAM), a leading provider of secure, outsourced e-business infrastructure
services and software, today announced the global availability of
EdgeSuiteSM for Business Continuity - a comprehensive, managed service
designed to ensure 100 percent availability of Web-based business
operations.
Enhancing Akamai`s flagship EdgeSuite service with new, advanced features
for infrastructure protection, EdgeSuite for Business Continuity enables
enterprises to fortify their Web infrastructure via Akamai`s globally
distributed network to withstand the most rigorous of e-business demands in
the face of planned or unforeseen events. Businesses such as Amtrak and
Victoria`s Secret have already enlisted Akamai to supplement their existing
infrastructure to meet their real-time business objectives without
interruption.
As enterprises continue to move business processes online for cost and time
efficiencies, the risks of downtime caused by planned and unplanned
maintenance, physical disasters, distributed denial of service (DDoS)
attacks, viruses, and unpredictable flash crowds become more critical. To
guard against outages, the only alternative for many companies is to
over-provision their infrastructure with costly equipment, software, and
personnel that will remain idle once the immediate need has passed.
EdgeSuite for Business Continuity allows enterprises to cost-effectively
outsource their requirements for scalability on-demand, automatic site
failover, and DDoS mitigation - enabled by the world`s largest distributed
computing platform with unmatched capacity and no single point of failure.
"The availability of an enterprise`s Web operations is vital to building and
maintaining its brand equity and customer loyalty, ensuring communications
with customers and partners, and ultimately generating revenue," said
Michael Ruffolo, executive vice president, Global Sales, Services and
Marketing, Akamai. "The inherent nature of Akamai`s massively distributed
global network provides a shock absorbing effect to protect a company`s
centralized infrastructure and preserve high availability. EdgeSuite for
Business Continuity leverages Akamai`s unique capabilities and distributed
computing platform to deliver uninterrupted, global e-business in the face
of trying circumstances."
According to Gartner analyst John Pescatore, "Any credible vulnerability
assessment will find that two or three Web servers connected to the Internet
are vulnerable to simple attacks that can, at the least, result in changing
the content of the Web server. While most Web server attacks now stop at
this level of vandalism, Gartner believes enterprises will need to
drastically increase their level of protection of Web servers to avoid the
growth market in hacking with political and criminal intent." (Gartner
Research, "Web Server Security Hierarchy," September 28, 2001)
Ensuring Non-Stop e-Business
"As the public turned to the Internet for travel information and
reservations on September 11th, and in the days immediately following,
amtrak.com turned to Akamai for help in off-loading demand for content that
resulted from a record in Web traffic," said Lenetta McCampbell, director of
Internet sales, Amtrak. "Akamai was critical in keeping the site
operational. By distributing our content onto its network, Akamai helped
Amtrak ease the load on our infrastructure and improve the availability of
our booking service for our customers at a critical time."
"The Victoria`s Secret brand is intrinsically tied to the customer
experience, which requires top performance and continual uptime for visitors
to VictoriasSecret.com - especially during peak holiday traffic and
supporting special events such as the Victoria`s Secret fashion show
webcast," said Tim Plzak, director, advanced technology group at Limited
Technology Services, which provides information technology services and
support to The Limited, Inc., and Intimate Brands, Inc., the parent company
of Victoria`s Secret. "It`s widely acknowledged that downtime results in
lost business and a diminished online brand, and Akamai EdgeSuite for
Business Continuity is an effective means of delivering an unfaltering Web
presence."
EdgeSuite for Business Continuity: New, Advanced Features
As the centerpiece of the Business Continuity offering, Akamai EdgeSuite
off-loads all the elements of an enterprise`s Web presence for generation
and delivery from Akamai`s global network. As part of the Business
Continuity solution-set, the following new features are immediately
available:
EdgeSuite Site Shield - Serves as a shield between an enterprise`s origin
server and the public Internet. The origin server is protected by several
Akamai servers that only accept traffic from neighboring Akamai servers.
Site Failover - Enables several options for automatic site failover,
including EdgeSuite`s ability to serve the most recently cached content, a
single default page, or a new option for serving an entire backup version of
the site that is stored on the Akamai network - off-setting the need for
costly site mirroring.
Enhanced DNS - Provides a distributed network of DNS servers to ensure that
queries are handled quickly and without fail in the event of unplanned
downtime due to server failure, network congestion and outages.
Secure Content Delivery - An advanced feature that provides highly secure
and reliable delivery of all SSL content, including transactions, with
unmatched performance and scalability, solving issues that are inherent in
SSL infrastructures.
Benefits of EdgeSuite for Business Continuity
Disaster Prevention - Akamai`s massively distributed network has several
features to mitigate the effects of security threats, such as DDoS attacks,
which have increased 60% since 1998*. EdgeSuite automatically disperses DDoS
attacks across Akamai`s network so that a site has no centralized point of
failure. This approach also ensures that the IP address of the origin
infrastructure is not advertised to the public Internet.
Cost-Effective Availability - As a managed service, EdgeSuite for Business
Continuity ensures uptime without the costly addition of equipment,
software, and personnel, or the need for mirrored sites.
Infrastructure Protection - With features like Enhanced DNS and EdgeSuite
Site Shield, a company`s origin infrastructure is cloaked from the public
Internet, mitigating the effects of unauthorized intrusions.
Unmatched Performance - DDoS attacks affect the performance of the entire
Internet by creating congestion and failed routers. EdgeSuite for Business
Continuity bypasses bottlenecks to deliver content and applications with
greater speed and reliability.
About Akamai
Akamai is a leading provider of secure, outsourced e-business infrastructure
services and software. These services and software enable companies to
reduce the complexity and cost of deploying and operating a uniform Web
infrastructure while ensuring unmatched performance, reliability,
scalability and manageability. Akamai`s services give businesses a distinct
competitive advantage and provide an unparalleled Internet experience for
their customers. Akamai`s intelligent edge platform for content, streaming
media, and application delivery comprises more than 13,000 servers within
over 1,000 networks in 63 countries. With headquarters in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, Akamai provides services to hundreds of companies worldwide.
For information on Delivering a Better InternetSM, visit www.akamai.com.
# # #
*(source: Sixth Annual Computer Crime & Security Survey)
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, general economic
conditions, the dependence on Akamai`s Internet content delivery service and
technology products, any unexpected problems in the functioning of EdgeSuite
for Business Continuity, lack of widespread customer acceptance of EdgeSuite
for Business Continuity, a failure of Akamai`s network infrastructure, and
other factors that are discussed in the Akamai`s Annual Report on Form 10-K,
quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with
the SEC.
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