Akamai Helps Drive Adoption of Faster and more Secure Web Protocol

Company Currently Working with more than 150 Customers to Deliver HTTP/2 Websites

News provided by

Nov 17, 2015, 06:30 ET

Akamai Technologies logo.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services, today announced that since showcasing a production demonstration of HTTP/2 at Velocity in 2014, the Company is now actively working with more than 150 customers to deliver HTTP/2-enabled websites and is expanding its HTTP/2 program to all customers using qualifying products to deliver TLS encrypted web content.

HTTP/2 represents the first major update to the HTTP network protocol in nearly 20 years. Although websites have dramatically evolved during this time, HTTP, the underlying protocol of the Web, has not. Through features and capabilities such as multiplexing and concurrency, header compression, server push, support for the latest cipher suites, and an overall reduction in development complexity, HTTP/2 is intended to significantly improve the performance and security/privacy of today's Web.

"For the past 17 years, customers have relied on Akamai to transform the unpredictable Internet into a fast, reliable, and secure platform for transacting e-commerce, distributing rich media, and delivering enterprise applications," explained Ash Kulkarni, senior vice president and general manager, Web Experience, Akamai. "HTTP/2 is a critical piece in the puzzle of how to deliver near-instant web experiences, especially for mobile users on constrained cellular networks. Akamai is proud to be at the forefront of driving the adoption of this new web standard."

With Akamai engineers deeply involved in the IETF HTTP Working Group, Akamai has been instrumental in working with other Internet industry leaders to define the new HTTP/2 protocol. The company's activities in this area were grounded in its commitment to benefit users, content providers, service providers, developers, and the Internet community at large.

"In addition to the great performance benefits, we believe HTTP/2 will drive greater adoption of TLS. We believe the combination of Akamai's industry-leading TLS offerings with the HTTP/2 protocol will provide a faster and more secure Internet for everyone," continued Kulkarni.

More than 70 percent of requests on Akamai's CDN currently come from HTTP/2 compliant browsers; however, some older browser versions will continue to be used for the foreseeable future. Therefore, Akamai's implementation of HTTP/2 has been designed to use real-time network and end-user intelligence to dynamically apply the appropriate performance optimizations to ensure the best performance for each user. In addition, we believe Akamai is well positioned to offer the tools and intelligence required to take full advantage of the move to HTTP/2. For example, easy‑to‑use, self-service and highly granular configurability allows customers to control the deployment of HTTP/2, while built-in monitoring and reporting helps measure the impact.

One organization taking advantage of Akamai's HTTP/2 support is Concur, the world's leading provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions and services.

"Concur's users rely on us for the perfect trip and they interact with our applications from all over the world, often in 'network-hostile' conditions. Advances in network capabilities, such as HTTP/2, that can improve end-user performance are important to us," stated Drew Garner, senior director, Cloud Architecture, Concur. "Akamai was able to begin serving our traffic over HTTP/2 almost immediately after the new protocol was ratified. It took us approximately 30 seconds to turn on HTTP/2. So far, we have seen significant performance improvement, up to 68 percent faster page load times for mobile cellular users for certain pages."

To learn more about Akamai and HTTP/2 please visit http2.akamai.com.

About Akamai
As the global leader in Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, Akamai makes the Internet fast, reliable and secure for its customers. The company's advanced web performance, mobile performance, cloud security and media delivery solutions are revolutionizing how businesses optimize consumer, enterprise and entertainment experiences for any device, anywhere. To learn how Akamai solutions and its team of Internet experts are helping businesses move faster forward, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.

Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
This release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about future business plans and opportunities. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, a failure of Akamai's offerings or functionalities to operate as expected, a lack of market acceptance of such service offerings and functionalities, and other factors that are discussed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10- Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.