AKAMAI CLOUD OPTIMIZATION FOCUS SHEET

Akamai Cloud Optimization

for Amazon EC2™

The emergence of public cloud platforms and services has IT organizations thinking
about which applications they want to keep in-house and which they can build within
the cloud. For example, Amazon EC2 has become a popular service platform for running
applications in the cloud. While these public cloud offerings often simplify management
of IT infrastructure and generate savings on capital and operating expenditure, we believe
they do not adequately address performance and availability issues related to the Internet
cloud itself.
Cloud computing platforms are typically built on “big data-centers” in a small
Want to learn more about
number of locations- as a result, the experience tends to degrade as a user gets
Akamai Cloud Optimization?
further from the data-center. Even users in the same country as the data-center
Visit Akamai’s APS Web page:
are often subject to unacceptable performance and availability as a result of
• http://www.akamai.com/cloud
sub-optimal routing and the chatty protocols that govern the Internet. This
phenomenon calls for a highly distributed architecture to optimize website
and application delivery from the application user to the regional data center.
Combining an optimized cloud with a virtual computing service like Amazon
EC2, can help enterprises overcome slow response times and spotty availability,
to improve application adoption and help businesses realize the expected
benefits of their public cloud computing initiatives.

Did you know:

• Ten of the largest networks provide last mile access to approximately

30% of overall Internet users

• No single network provides more than 5% of access traffic

• A
 majority of your users are not buying Internet connectivity from the same
provider servicing the cloud provider’s datacenter

• Even when large datacenters reside within the world’s largest networks,
average distance between a user and the datacenter may exceed 1,500 miles

Number of ISPs Crossed from Application User

to Data-Center – Intra City
1 2 3 4 5
Frankfurt 5% 21% 30% 28% 16%
Singapore 19% 19% 25% 31% 6%
Chicago 10% 59% 31% 0% 0%
Seattle 3% 17% 47% 27% 6%

Figure 1: Based on a study of sample of IP Traceroutes, the table above shows that an application user
in Frankfurt would traverse 3 or more ISP’s 74% of the time to connect to application infrastructure
also located in Frankfurt, but using a different service provider.
Akamai Cloud Optimization for EC2™ AKAMAI CLOUD OPTIMIZATION FOCUS SHEET
Want to know if Akamai’s cloud
optimization services can help?
Realize the full value of your cloud initiatives with minimum
effort and no capital expenditures using Akamai’s simple
yet effective cloud optimization service.
Ask yourself the following questions:
• A
 re your global users experiencing inconsistent response
times and availability for applications or sites running
on the Amazon EC2 platform? Is this affecting adoption
and hindering achievement of your business objectives?
• Is the inability to take immediate corrective measures
when performance degrades or content becomes unavailable
a serious concern? Are support costs on the rise?
• Is the inability to meet user expectations, preserve
business continuity and provide optimal performance
globally for your Amazon EC2 based application
derailing your cloud strategy?
• A
 re you realizing the full expected benefits and return
on your Amazon EC2 investment?
• Have you taken measures to deal with application
downtime caused by unplanned outages or cable cuts?
Akamai Cloud Optimization Diagram
Akamai
Edge Servers
Amazon EC2
Datacenters
Akamai’s Cloud Optimization Services
Akamai’s cloud optimization services help businesses improve
performance, increase availability, and enhance security of
applications and key web assets delivered from the Amazon
EC2 infrastructure to global users. The reliance on the Internet
by cloud providers introduces performance and reliability
challenges inherent to the Internet, particularly for users
further away from the cloud infrastructure. Akamai’s Cloud
optimization services address distance problems, network
inefficiencies and congestion, thereby helping businesses
realize the full benefits of their cloud strategy as a viable
alternative to building out IT infrastructure.
Learn how Akamai can help you deliver fast,
consistent application response times and
preserve business continuity for applications
or sites running on Amazon EC2
While specific configuration and use conditions can vary
greatly, the following examples are provided to show real
examples of how Akamai has helped businesses improve
the performance and availability of content and applications
hosted on Amazon EC2. The tests reported within this
document have been performed using real world Internet
conditions to characterize real business transactions,
as opposed to an environment where conditions can be
simplified to demonstrate artificial gains. In the following
examples, the performance results cited are only for these
specific customers, based on tests conducted, and may
vary for other customers.
End User
Legend
SaaS or Custom
Application Running
on Amazon EC2
Infrastructure
End User
Distributed Akamai
Edge Servers
Application Acceler-
End User ated over Public
Cloud with Akamai
Akamai Cloud Optimization for EC2™ AKAMAI CLOUD OPTIMIZATION FOCUS SHEET

Leading online project collaboration (SaaS) company in Asia

Challenge: Improve performance and adoption of their application in new regions, grow revenue
The online project collaboration space is witnessing intense competition with many players vying
to be leaders. The tremendous demand for the SaaS version of their services has boosted revenues,
and ISV’s are keen to expand their footprint. This company realized building out multiple datacenters 40
in new regions would be cost prohibitive and instead chose to host its application on Amazon EC2. 35
This meant it could scale on-demand and avoid the complexity of managing an internal IT infrastructure.
30
However, the company quickly realized that moving to the cloud did not diminish the need for
performance acceleration, knowing that providing customers flawless performance and a superior 25
user experience would drive better adoption and greater revenue. Its goal was to consistently provide 20
fast response times to users, particularly in Europe and Asia. Tests conducted with Akamai’s cloud
15
optimization services showed an average global improvement of 110%, with improved performance
and high availability for users farther away from the cloud infrastructure. This was an ideal solution 10
because it seamlessly integrated with the company’s current set up, required no capital expenditure 5
upfront and was quickly deployed. With Akamai, this company was able to move confidently into
0
new regions, drive greater adoption for its application and grow revenue. The company could now
Global APAC Europe N America
focus on its core competency, adding new capabilities to its product, to differentiate itself and realize
a faster ROI on its cloud initiatives.

Leading online photo and video sharing company

Challenge: Improve performance, increase customer satisfaction and loyalty
8
There are many photo sharing companies but only a few that offer customers a premium service with
unlimited storage of high resolution pictures and videos. Ranked a top 400 website, this company’s goal 7
is to simply become the best photo sharing site in the world while remaining profitable. To that end, it 6
chose to focus on providing customers high quality service, better tools and great functionality without
5
managing & operating datacenters. The company’s enormous repository of photos/videos and rapidly
increasing storage requirements led to picking multiple cloud services for storage and compute capacity 4
(processing images). It was aware that fetching images from different geographic locations and serving 3
large volumes of high-resolution images and high definition videos over the Internet to a globally dispersed
2
user base would induce latency and bring user experience and customer satisfaction issues to the fore.
Tests conducted with Akamai showed an average 290% improvement in performance, underscoring the 1
need for a cloud optimization service that can overcome Internet bottlenecks. With Akamai in place, it 0
could cache images, reduce round trip times, and serve content from servers close to its users, increasing Global Asia Europe N America
customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Leading professional sports organization

Challenge: Promote large annual sporting event online, drive awareness for the game 8
To popularize its sport, this sports league decided to raise awareness for its game in other parts of the 7
world with an extensive online strategy, based on detailed demographic research findings. It was decided
6
that the online promotion would coincide with the run up to its highly anticipated championship game.
To that end, an interactive microsite was launched with the objective of attracting visitors and allowing 5
them to experience the game online. With several targeted campaigns expected to drive large volumes 4
of traffic over a limited period, hosting the site on the Amazon EC2 platform was an ideal choice. While
3
this provided on-demand scalability, the league knew user experience was just as important, especially
during traffic peaks. Tests with Akamai showed an average 300% improvement for this customer and 2
the microsite was approximately 4x times faster with high availability for users further away from the 1
cloud infrastructure. The sports league could now confidently launch the online program as envisioned,
maintain high availability, deliver consistent response times with increased impressions, keep users 0
engaged longer, and ensure a high volume of return visitors. Global Asia Europe N America

Global design software company 18

Challenge: Improve performance and adoption for their site 16
This global company launched a service that allowed its audience to find, download and upload large, 14
user created design files, allowing users to share information and best practices. It decided to host
the service on Amazon EC2 because it made IT management easier and allowed it to focus on its core 12
competence. With millions of globally dispersed users accessing these large files, performance of the site 10
was important to drive adoption. Tests conducted with Akamai have shown an average 90% improvement. 8
The company believes this can help its customers reduce the time needed to recreate design components
and therefore deliver ideas more effectively. 6
4
2
0
Global Asia Europe Latin
America
Akamai Cloud Optimization for EC2™ AKAMAI CLOUD OPTIMIZATION FOCUS SHEET

How it Works
Akamai’s cloud optimization services leverage a network of tens Enterprises should feel comfortable deploying Akamai’s
of thousands of servers located in more than 1,000 networks Application Performance Solutions to improve the global
in 70 countries. The network is controlled by an intelligent system delivery of their enterprise collaboration tools. Application
that routes requests based on real time Internet conditions. Performance Solutions are backed by service level
Performance improvements are gained through several techniques agreements (SLAs) that guarantee defined global and
such as dynamic mapping, pre-fetching, caching, and route performance improvements and network availability.
and protocol optimizations.
The solution requires no additional hardware, software,
Akamai maps user requests to an optimal Akamai server, located or code changes. It is easy to deploy and seamlessly
very close to the end user. Dynamic route optimization technology integrates with your Amazon EC2 environment.
identifies the fastest, most reliable path between the end user
Akamai’s EdgeControl management portal also provides
and cloud infrastructure, helping avoid Internet congestion,
a convenient web-based interface with advanced
peering issues and other bottlenecks. The graph below displays
reporting capabilities to monitor performance of your
the percentage of content delivered via an alternate, optimized
cloud based applications.
route. In this case traffic is sent along the optimized route 85.9%
of the time, on average, maximizing performance and ensuring
application availability across the cloud.

Graph displaying percentage of traffic delivered over the

Akamai optimized path

The service is backed by an unmatched service level

agreement (SLA) for global performance improvement
and 100% network availability, along with 24 x 7 x 365
Portal Performance Graph technical support.

Amazon EC2 is a Trademark of Amazon Web Services LLC, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. and
is used for descriptive purposes only and without intent to imply endorsement of Akamai services.

The Akamai Difference

Akamai® provides market-leading managed services for powering rich media, dynamic transactions, and enterprise applications online. Having pioneered the content delivery market
one decade ago, Akamai’s services have been adopted by the world’s most recognized brands across diverse industries. The alternative to centralized Web infrastructure, Akamai’s
global network of tens of thousands of distributed servers provides the scale, reliability, insight and performance for businesses to succeed online. Akamai has transformed the
Internet into a more viable place to inform, entertain, interact, and collaborate. To experience The Akamai Difference, visit www.akamai.com.

Akamai Technologies, Inc.

U.S. Headquarters International Offices

8 Cambridge Center Unterfoehring, Germany Bangalore, India
Cambridge, MA 02142 Paris, France Sydney, Australia ©2010 Akamai Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole
Milan, Italy or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.
Tel 617.444.3000 Beijing, China
Akamai and the Akamai wave logo are registered trademarks. Other trademarks
Fax 617.444.3001 London, England Tokyo, Japan contained herein are the property of their respective owners. Akamai believes that
U.S. toll-free 877.4AKAMAI Madrid, Spain Seoul, Korea the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date; such
(877.425.2624) Stockholm, Sweden Singapore information is subject to change without notice.

www.akamai.com