Akamai Technologies - Content Delivery To A User

Content Delivery To A User

Akamai provides a service to companies that have content on the Internet (Akamai's customers), to more efficiently deliver this content to users browsing the Web and downloading content. Akamai does this by transparently mirroring content—sometimes all site content including HTML, CSS, and software downloads, and sometimes just media objects such as audio, graphics, animation, and video—from customer servers. Though the domain name (but not subdomain) is the same, the IP address points to an Akamai server or another user's machine that Akamai is using as a server rather than the customer's server. The Akamai server is automatically picked depending on the type of content and the user's network location.

The benefit is that users can receive content from whichever Akamai server or user is close to them or has a good connection, leading to faster download times and less vulnerability to network congestion or outages. Further, for streaming media Akamai claims to provide better scalability by delivering the content over the last-mile from servers close to end users, avoiding the middle-mile bottleneck of the Internet.

In addition to content caching, Akamai provides services which accelerate dynamic and personalized content, J2EE-compliant applications, and streaming media to the extent that such services frame a localized perspective.