SECURITY NEWS
Akamai announces its Generalised Edge Compute , Gecko platform that advances cloud computing
Akamai Technologies , the cloud company that powers and protects life online , unveiled plans to embed cloud computing capabilities into its massive edge network . Akamai ’ s Generalised Edge Compute , Gecko advances Akamai ’ s strategy to be the cloud computing platform for companies that want to deliver better experiences by running workloads closer to users , devices , and sources of data .
Akamai ’ s move comes at an exciting juncture for the technology industry . In a worldwide study conducted in 2023 , ClearPath Strategies found that two-thirds of IT decision-makers said their use of distributed cloud services is expected to increase over the next 12 months . More than one-third of respondents said the benefits of distributed cloud , including the ability to process and analyse AI and machine learning data quickly and efficiently , are mission critical to their IT strategy .
The new initiative is the latest move in Akamai ’ s multiyear strategy to become a key platform in enterprise multicloud environments . It is another step in the company ’ s vision for a new kind of cloud designed to meet the needs of modern applications that require higher performance , lower latency , and true global scalability that current cloud architectures were not built to provide .
Akamai has been conducting early trials of Gecko with several of its enterprise customers . The company anticipates that customers in AI inferencing , multiplayer gaming , and social and streaming media are best positioned to take advantage of the power of Gecko . Akamai sees future use cases in areas such as immersive retail , spatial computing , data analytics , and consumer and industrial IoT .
Current industry architectures treat cloud and edge networks separately . Gecko is designed to enable generalised compute to be deployed on top of Akamai ’ s existing worldwide edge network , taking advantage of existing tools , processes , and observability to provide a consistent experience across the entire continuum of compute from cloud to edge . Gecko will move heavier , traditional compute , usually confined to centralised data centres , to the edge of Akamai ’ s network . This will bring full-stack computing to hundreds of previously hard-to-reach locations , allowing customers to move workloads closer to their users .
By injecting cloud computing into places that traditional cloud providers have struggled to reach , developers will no longer have to think about building for the cloud or building for the edge . As developers demand more from their cloud and edge providers , Akamai ’ s plan is to unlock opportunities to innovate
Dr Tom Leighton , Akamai Co-Founder and CEO
ClearPath Strategies found that two-thirds of IT decision-makers said their use of distributed cloud services is expected to increase over the next 12 months .
across the entire continuum of compute by driving the convergence necessary to put cloud computing power at the edge , convergence not possible before Gecko .
“ Gecko is the most exciting thing to happen to the cloud in a decade ,” said Dr Tom Leighton , Akamai Co-Founder and CEO . “ It ’ s the next phase of the roadmap toward a more connected cloud we laid out when we acquired Linode to add cost-effective , cloudnative computing capabilities to our portfolio . We began delivering on that roadmap with the launch of Akamai Connected Cloud and the rapid rollout of new core computing regions around the world .”
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