Caching

Akamai Reaches Farther

Most of Akamai's revenues are recurring revenues from current customers, a fact that is driving Akamai to extend services and to increase the number of Akamai POPs around the world. All of this is good news for ISPs.

by Alex Goldman
Associate Editor, ISP-Planet
[November 1, 2000]

We last wrote about Akamai in early June ("Akamai Broadens Reach, Sweetens Pot for ISP Partners" by Lisa Phifer), when we decribed the complex global network of partnerships they had already built, and focused on the ISP side of the Akamai story by covering their offering for ISPs, Akamai's Accelerated Network Program (AANP). Akamai accelerates its customers' content, and provides ISPs with a Usenet feed as well as a cache on Akamai's Content Delivery Network (CDN). The article noted that, "According to Akamai, Usenet traffic is doubling in size every year. Offloading 12 Mbps of Usenet traffic onto the CyberStar satellite network will allow participating ISPs in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia to free terrestrial bandwidth now consumed by Usenet traffic. Using a broadcast medium to deliver Usenet is a win-win proposition for everyone involved."

Akamai provides the hardware for free, requiring only that the ISP supply power, bandwidth, and occasional "hands and eye" support if the equipment itself fails. Akamai provides remote admin support.

I am a portal
Akamai also announced its I.AM.AKAMAI portal program at Internet World in New York City last week. The portal will integrate various service offerings and enable clients to monitor performance. The portal features a Siebel trouble ticket system, and some Akamai partners are moving to Siebel to increase their compatibility with the Akamai network. Akamai's Senior Vice President, Earl Galleher, said that Akamai has never been below SLA compliance. He added that 99% of trouble tickets are issued and resolved through e-mail, using the Siebel system.

Akamai around the world
Akamai announced nine new portal technology partners. Prominent among them was FireClick, which speeds content to the browser cache, an area that had previously been beyond Akamai's reach.

Another technology partner is 2Roam, a wireless content optimizer (the company is a CMGI investment).

The general theme of Akamai's plan, going forward, seems to be to extend the reach and depth of Akamai services. Earl Galleher, said that 90% of Akamai's revenues are recurring revenues from existing customers, and that therefore customer service is a top priority of Akamai's. He noted that as soon as a sale is made, the customer is transferred from sales to customer service, whereas at some other companies, sales and customer service are handled by the same department.

However, the fact that most revenue comes from current customers also explains the current strategy. Akamai is focusing on adding services to increase revenues from current customers (just as many ISPs are also trying to increase per-customer revenues).

A reseller program for ISPs
Akamai also has a reseller program for those ISPs that have many high-bandwidth business webhosting customers. The program is called the Edge Network Exchange Program, and is designed to generate new revenue channels for ISPs. The reseller purchases a specific amount of bandwidth on the Akamai network (there is a minumum amount) and resells Akamai's services to the ISP's webhosting cutomers.

Akamai provides training and marketing support. Companies such as Earthstation Netaxs, Fastnet, Stargate, and ComStar.net (a.k.a Globix), all of which have many such clients, are Akamai Edge Network Exchange Partners.

Companies can also resell portions of the Akamai product set. For example, in late June, Akamai announced its EdgeScape product which allows publishers to customize broadcast content so that, for example, news or sports events could be broadcast worldwide, but arrive in the language of the destination country. Akamai will extend the EdgeScape offering to enable the customization of wireless content, and to enable content to be optimized for the device on which the content is being received. Akamai announced that LoudCloud would be reselling EdgeScape.

The NOCC
Akamai does have a command center from which the network is monitored. Margot Daling, Business Development Manager of Network Infrastructure, told us that the Network Operations Command Center (NOCC) watches 6000 servers on 335 networks, and that if any one server goes down, Akamai's software determines which server is the next nearest (taking into account latency, throughput, and packet loss). Akamai has the capability to monitor each server deployed on 335 networks worldwide (some of those networks are small, some are large), but Akamai does not publish reports on each network's performance (ISP-Planet would love to publish such a report).

—End