As we climb up the face of the cloud computing hype curve it appears as though every product manager is looking for ways to show how their product will contribute in the race to move IT into the cloud. Last week it was Akamai's turn when they announced an extension to their IP Application Accelerator service that provides support for Citrix and Microsoft's remote display protocols. But unlike some, Akamai's marketeers need to be given serious attention.
Akamai are hardly a household name, but they are arguably one of the most important companies behind today's Internet - Akamai are responsible for moving 15% - 20% of all web traffic.
Much of Akamai's business is basic content delivery services. Chances are that copy of Windows 7 RC 1 you downloaded a couple of months back, the anti-virus signature file you downloaded yesterday, and the copy of Wyse PocketCloud you downloaded to your iPhone this morning in a moment of rash extravagance all came from your local Akamai server cluster. Media streams from most major media companies are delivered by Akamai, and the web applications that are at the heart of over $100 billion in e-commerce transactions every year.
In addition to providing bulk data moving services, Akamai's other big value add is in optimizing end to end connections. The tangled web of connections that make up the internet is both a strength and a weakness. The real-time routing and re-routing of traffic as it travels from A to B can result in dropped packets and packets arriving out of sequence, increasing latency and reducing effective bandwidth utilization. By deploying edge servers at strategic points throughout the world (over 40,000 servers in 71 countries) Akamai can ensure the fastest possible delivery of their customers' data, with the lowest number of dropped packets and so maximizing usable bandwidth.
Akamai’s goal here is twofold, to facilitate VDI access anywhere users have an Internet connection, and more importantly to eliminate the need for customers to invest in expensive dedicated communications bandwidth between DaaS provider and corporate network. Needless to say DaaS vendors will welcome this move; there's little overlap between DaaS and network service providers and where there is it seems to be lacking in conviction (Verizon was an early Desktone partner, but neither company seems to be making much effort to champion the other at the moment).
Akamai make some remarkable claims for benefit achieved. On a long haul connection from Akamai's HQ in Cambridge, Mass to Singapore, VDI traffic routed via Akamai's service showed a 700% improvement in usable bandwidth. The improvements offer on short haul routes are much smaller, around 5% from Cambridge to Boca Raton in Florida, but while 5% doesn't sound like much of an improvement there may be sufficient secondary benefits in terms of predictability of performance and protection from regional and local infrastructure failures.
This does not mean that this service is capable of addressing all the issues associated with DaaS. Client/server application latency still needs to be addressed. Most desktop applications works best when data is co-located with the desktop and to be fully successful a DaaS implementation needs to provide a means of addressing that problem as well. Fortunately there are plenty of WAN Acceleration solutions available from a wide range of vendors, Akamai included, that go a long way addressing this problem.
There's no denying the value that an effective display protocol acceleration service will bring to the DaaS market. If DaaS providers can leverage IP application acceleration effectively they will be able to extend the reach of their services, improve the end user experience and lower the cost of delivering the service. So it bodes well for all.
