ORACLE AND AKAMAI DELIVER TECHNOLOGY TO ACCELERATE WEB APPLICATIONS AND CONTENT
Oracle9i Application Server and Akamai`s EdgeSuiteSM service interoperate to
enable companies to develop and deploy dynamic Web sites and applications
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 30, 2001 - Addressing
the growing need to accelerate dynamic Web content delivery while
simplifying the infrastructure required to ensure improved application
performance and scalability, Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL), the leading
provider of software for e-business, and Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:
AKAM), the leading Content Delivery Service Provider (CDSP), today announced
development and delivery of Edge Side Includes (ESI), an open specification
for assembling dynamic Web pages at the edge of the data center or the edge
of the Internet. Leaders in the application server and content delivery
industry, including Oracle and Akamai, will jointly submit ESI to the
appropriate standards bodies for approval as a standard later this spring.
With ESI, companies can reduce the complexity and infrastructure
requirements of developing, deploying and maintaining highly scalable and
reliable Web sites and Web-based applications.
ESI is a simple markup language used to define Web page fragments for
dynamic assembly at the edge of the data center or the edge of the Internet.
With today`s announcement, Oracle9i Application Server and Akamai`s
EdgeSuiteSM service are offering support for this next-generation content
delivery technology.
Dynamic Assembly at the Edge
Traditional caching techniques speed the delivery of static content to
client browsers over the Internet and corporate intranets. Most Web pages
today, however, are generated on demand for each individual user and many
contain a mix of personalized and non-personalized content fragments, making
them non-cacheable by traditional caching products and CDN services. ESI
will enable dynamic assembly of these page fragments. As a result,
customers now can develop highly dynamic Web-based applications that are
assembled at the edge of the data center, or at the edge of the Internet,
for improved performance.
"ESI will help to solve the scalability problem with sites that create
unique page configurations for such things as personalization," said Neal
Goldman, research director at The Yankee Group. "Without functionality such
as ESI, the burden to dynamically generate pages falls solely on the origin
server."
"We are working with Akamai and other industry leaders to submit this
standard because we believe that the best thing we can do for our customers
is to fight complexity on every front," said Rene Bonvanie, vice president
of Oracle9i marketing. "ESI reduces the complexity and cost of developing
and deploying new applications that are optimized to deliver fast content,
even on sites where that content is constantly changing throughout the day
and visitor volume is high."
By supporting ESI, Oracle and Akamai are extending the performance and cost
savings benefits of Web caching and content delivery services to accelerate
the most dynamic Web sites. As users flock to Web sites with dynamic,
personalized content -- auctions, news, stock quotes -- this new technology
will enable increased throughput and better response times with reduced
infrastructure costs. With Oracle`s caching expertise and Akamai`s strength
in content delivery services, customers will be able to choose the best
application deployment strategy at run-time for maximum speed and content
delivery without changing the application. For Web developers, the
advantages of ESI include built-in scalability, interoperability across
multiple vendors, and support for existing applications.
"Both Akamai and Oracle were independently working on the challenge of
accelerating the delivery of dynamic Web sites," said George Kurian, vice
president of product marketing at Akamai. "We are excited that two leading
vendors of mission-critical Internet infrastructure solutions have used an
open language to make our products and services interoperate. This enables
companies to develop and deploy more high-performing Web sites with less
complexity and less infrastructure."
Oracle will offer support for ESI in the next version of Oracle9i
Application Server, starting in May of 2001 (see related release). To help
J2EE based solutions leverage ESI, Oracle9i Application Server will also
provide support for Edge Side Includes for Java (JESI). In addition, Oracle
JDeveloper, a part of Internet Developer Suite, will enable development of
ESI-compliant Java applications.
Akamai will implement ESI as part of the Akamai EdgeSuite service offering
starting in May of 2001. This will include the integration of ESI into
Akamai`s metadata management system, as well as the support for ESI across
Akamai`s global platform of close to 10,000 globally distributed content
delivery servers.
About Oracle9i Application Server
Oracle9i Application Server is the industry`s fastest and most comprehensive
deployment platform for web sites and e-business applications. It provides
full J2EE support and delivers advanced features such as data and page
caching, clustering and failover, enterprise portal framework, wireless
services, business intelligence, and XML-based collaboration. Oracle9i
Application Server has featured page caching technology since it was
introduced in October 2000, making it the first and only application server
to include built-in caching capabilities. As a result, customers have
experienced faster Web site performance, increased scalability and high
availability of content.
About Akamai EdgeSuite
Akamai`s EdgeSuite offering, a complete suite of managed Internet
infrastructure services, allows Web sites to reap the performance,
scalability, and reliability benefits of content delivery across an entire
Web site, including static and dynamic content, embedded objects, streaming
media, and HTML. Leveraging Akamai`s global network, EdgeSuite enables the
generation and delivery of dynamic content by constructing Web pages from
component pieces that can be targeted and delivered from optimal locations
for each end user. Given today`s challenged IT budgets, EdgeSuite allows
Web-assisted and Web-dependent businesses to outsource critical Web
infrastructure to Akamai, realizing significant cost savings and measurably
improving performance and reliability at the same time.
About Oracle
Oracle Corporation provides the software that powers the Internet.
For more information about Oracle, please call 650/506-7000.
About Akamai
Akamai is the leading Content Delivery Service Provider, serving thousands
of customers worldwide. Akamai has the broadest deployment of servers for
content, streaming media, and applications delivery with more than 9,700
servers in 56 countries directly connected within over 650 different
telecommunications networks.
# # #
Danielle Epstein
Oracle Corp.
(650) 607-5594
danielle.epstein@oracle.com
Jeff Young
Akamai Technologies, Inc
(617) 250-3913
jyoung@akamai.com
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