WebProNews

Tag: Linode

  • Akamai Is Taking on the Cloud’s Top Dogs With Linode

    Akamai Is Taking on the Cloud’s Top Dogs With Linode

    Akamai is hitting the ground running with its Linode purchase, using it as the backbone of its cloud ambitions.

    Akamai made its name as the world’s leading content delivery network (CDN), but has been aggressively transforming itself into a cloud provider. It’s $900 million purchase of Linode was a major piece of that transformation and the company is using it as a launchpad to challenge the cloud industry’s giants.

    Last week, Akamai unviled its Connected Cloud service, and promised a “a fundamentally different approach to cloud.” The company plans to build “three new enterprise-scale core cloud computing sites” in the US and Europe. The new sites are expected to go live by the end of Q2 2023 and will be based on the Linode assets. The sites will also serve as a template for 10 additional core sites the company will deploy throughout the year.

    The company also plans to roll out out at least 50 distributed sites in 2023, greatly expanding cloud computing’s reach, especially in remote locations.

    In what is sure to be good news for many companies, Akamai plans to bring CDN economics to cloud egress pricing in an effort to help drive down cost. This has been a growing concern for many companies, with cloud computing costs growing much faster than many expected.

    “The cloud’s next phase requires a shift in how developers and enterprises think about getting applications and data closer to their customers. It redefines how the industry looks at things like performance, scale, cost, and security, as workloads are no longer built for one place but are delivered across a wide spectrum of compute and geography,” said Dave McCarthy, Research VP, IDC. “Akamai’s innovative rethinking of how this gets done — and how it is architecting Akamai Connected Cloud — puts it in a unique position to usher in an exciting new era for technology and to help enterprises build, deploy, and secure distributed applications.”

    “We’re taking a fundamentally different approach to cloud computing — building on 25 years of experience scaling and securing the internet for the biggest companies in the world,” said Tom Leighton, Akamai’s Co-Founder and CEO. “Akamai is building the cloud the next decade needs.”

  • Akamai Will Double Linode’s Global Footprint

    Akamai Will Double Linode’s Global Footprint

    Akamai plans to double Linode’s global footprint, adding a dozen new data centers.

    Akamai purchased Linode for $900 million in early 2022. Linode was previously one of the largest privately owned cloud providers, competing against AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud. The service is especially popular for its Linux virtual machine instances. A deal with Akamai, a leading CDN provider, made sense and provided a way for Linode to expand its scale even more.

    The deal appears to be paying off, with Akamai looking to invest in a major expansion of Linode’s services.

    “Today, we are happy to share that we plan to add more than a dozen new Linode data centers — equipped with Linode’s full product suite — across North America, APAC, LATAM, and Europe by the end of 2023,” writes Shawn Michaels, VP of Product Management. “Our first new location is planned for Ashburn, Virginia, later this year with more to follow in the first half of 2023.

    “Along with Ashburn, we are planning to add locations in Amsterdam, Chennai, Chicago, Delhi, Jakarta, Los Angeles, Osaka, Miami, Paris, Rome, São Paulo, Seattle, and Stockholm. The exact number of sites, locations, and dates of operation are all being actively worked on. We plan on providing regular updates as the details for each location solidify.”

  • DevOps Organizations Are Increasingly Turning to Alternate Cloud Providers

    DevOps Organizations Are Increasingly Turning to Alternate Cloud Providers

    A new report on the DevOps industry should be a concern for the top three cloud providers, showing that organizations are increasingly looking for alternate providers.

    AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud dominate the industry, accounting for a 71% share of the market. Similarly, the three companies account for 65% of all cloud spending. Nonetheless, it appears some organizations are looking to support smaller, independent rivals.

    A new report, commissioned by Linode and conducted by Techstrong Research, shows that despite 93% of respondents using one of the Big Three, two-thirds would consider an alternative.

    The largest three hyperscalers (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Compute) are used by 93% of respondents. Yet many DevOps buyers are re-thinking a reflex default to these hyperscalers. Two-thirds of companies surveyed would consider bringing in an “alternative” CSP; almost 22% have already done so. In fact, the combined market share for the top alternative vendors is fourth in the category, just behind Microsoft and Google.

    Even more troubling for the Big Three is the growing interest in alternative providers, as well as the reasons that interest is growing.

    Interest and adoption is highest in small and medium organizations (fewer than 10,000 employees). Main reasons for bringing in a new vendor include reducing reliance on a single provider, improving price performance and ease of use, and better data protection.

    Another growing concern is competition from a company’s cloud service provider (CSP). Each of the Big Three are part of larger companies that offer a wide array of products and services, many of which can compete with the products and services of their cloud customers.

    More than 50% of DevOps professionals and leaders surveyed say their CSP is already a competitor to their B2B or B2C business or is expected to become one. Fear of IP loss and rapid market displacement is also evidenced in respondent’s strong stated desire to work with a trustworthy, capable provider who shares their company values.

    Needless to say, the Big Three hold a commanding position in the market, and it will be a long time before they face a serious challenge. Nonetheless, the report should be a cause for concern and highlights areas where they must improve in order to keep their customers happy.

  • Akamai’s Transformation to a Distributed Cloud Provider Nearly Complete

    Akamai’s Transformation to a Distributed Cloud Provider Nearly Complete

    Akamai, the company synonymous with content delivery networks (CDN), has been slowly transitioning to become the “world’s most distributed cloud services provider,” a transformation that is well on its way.

    Akamai is one of the leading CDN providers in the world, but the company has been diversifying and expanding into other categories. According to Protocol, the company’s most recent quarter saw its security and compute business combine to surpass its delivery revenue. More significantly, the company’s delivery revenue fell by 6%, while its security revenue increased 23% and its compute revenue grew by 32%.

    “Next year, security will be the largest of the three,” CEO Tom Leighton said in an interview with Protocol.

    “It won’t be the majority yet by itself, but it’ll be bigger than delivery and compute. Depends how fast compute grows, but that’s an enormous market, and who knows, maybe compute will be the largest in five years. It’ll be a tough fight with security for that crown, because those are both very fast-growing areas for Akamai.”

    Akamai has been working on this transition for some time, purchasing cloud provider Linode for $900 million in February 2022. When the acquisition was announced, Leighton specifically highlighted the role Linode would play in Akamai’s transformation as a driving motivation for the purchase.

    “Akamai has been a pioneer in the edge computing business for over 20 years, and today we are excited to begin a new chapter in our evolution by creating a unique cloud platform to build, run and secure applications from the cloud to the edge. This a big win for developers who will now be able to build applications on a platform that delivers unprecedented scale, reach, performance, reliability and security.”

  • Akamai Buying Linode For $900 Million

    Akamai Buying Linode For $900 Million

    Akamai Technologies, Inc. has entered an agreement to buy private-owned Linode for $900 million.

    Linode is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider, based in the US. Founded in 2003, the company offers a range of services, but is especially popular for its Linux-powered virtual machines. The company competes in the same market as much larger companies, such as Microsoft, AWS and Google.

    Linode sees the acquisition as the best way for it to continue to scale and widen its reach.

    “When we started to look at our long term roadmap and how to deliver the best possible customer experience, we knew it would require more — more network, more security, more scale,” writes Linode founder and CEO Christopher Aker. “Those are things Akamai does better than anyone. Applications and data are increasingly pushing out to the edge where you need a wider span of resiliency, reach, low latency, and security. Combining the things Akamai does well with the things Linode does well brings these together under one roof at massive scale, creating the world’s most distributed compute platform — from core to edge.”

    For its part, Akamai sees the acquisition as a way to become “world’s most distributed compute platform,” thanks to Linode’s solid reputation for making cloud computing easy for just about everyone.

    “The opportunity to combine Linode’s developer-friendly cloud computing capabilities with Akamai’s market-leading edge platform and security services is transformational for Akamai,” said Dr. Tom Leighton, chief executive officer and co-founder, Akamai Technologies. “Akamai has been a pioneer in the edge computing business for over 20 years, and today we are excited to begin a new chapter in our evolution by creating a unique cloud platform to build, run and secure applications from the cloud to the edge. This a big win for developers who will now be able to build applications on a platform that delivers unprecedented scale, reach, performance, reliability and security.”

    Akamai is already the 800-lb gorilla in the CDN market. The the Linode acquisition will only help the company become even more formidable.

    The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.