Akamai Expands Connected Cloud Infrastructure

Akamai, a content delivery giant, is expanding its own Connected Cloud infrastructure. In addition to existing data centers in the US and India, the company will be opening a new facility in France.
Content delivery is a crucial part of the internet, especially since the rise of streaming services like YouTube and Netflix. Akamai’s cloud services have moved beyond content delivery, competing with well-known names such as AWS and Azure to provide cloud computing solutions. Connected Cloud was launched earlier this year to meet this goal.

Global Coverage

The cloud is now a major part of many industries, and providing content quickly is an essential part of the internet. Akamai now has 4200 locations for their cloud services, spread over 134 countries. Most of these are concentrated in North America, Europe and East Asia, but the coverage is worldwide.
In the US, new facilities will be opened in Washington DC and Chicago. In France, the data center will be located in Paris later this year. Akamai is also working with a location in Chennai, India.

Aggressive Pricing

To compete with the likes of AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, Akamai is using an aggressive pricing structure. This will make it difficult for the big players to keep up, as many of their services run on their own cloud networks. This can lead to vendor lock-in, reducing the choices available to consumers.