Akamai seeks larger role in China's Web security

Akamai Technologies Inc, the world's leading cloud platform by Web traffic, is seeking to cement ties with Chinese firms on security solutions as the country becomes increasingly connected to the Internet, mostly via mobile phones.

The KONA Security Solutions, based on the Akamai Intelligent Platform, are designed to avoid data theft and downtime by extending the security perimeter outside the data-center and offer protection from increasing frequency, scale and sophistication of Web attacks, according to Akamai's official website.

Malcolm Rowe, vice-president for the Asia Pacific at Akamai Technologies Inc. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

"Akamai will continue to grow our presence in China and work closely with Chinese firms to enable them with best-in-class security solutions," said Malcolm Rowe, vice-president for the Asia Pacific at Akamai Technologies.

He didn't reveal which firms Akamai is or will be cooperating with, though.

China overtook the United States to become the world's largest smartphone market by volume in the third quarter of 2011, when smartphone shipments reached a record 24 million units in the country, according to data from US market research company Strategy Analytics.

That drives the number of Chinese people accessing the Internet via mobile phones to 388 million as of end-June, out of a total Internet population of 538 million, according to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center.

Yet the booming mobile Internet industry is not all a blessing, as China is now among the leading countries to emerge as the source of cyber attack traffic, Rowe said.

According to a report based on the first-quarter data gathered from the intelligent platform, attacks from China came out to 16 percent of the total, a rise of three percent from the last quarter of 2011.

"It's a world filled with opportunity for those willing to embrace it and able to tame it," Rowe said.

"Understanding current trends in four areas?- mobile, media, cloud, and security – is critical to embracing the hyper-connected era," he added.

With its cutting-edge security capabilities, Akamai is pushing cloud computing faster forward and empowering customers to realize gains in operational efficiency, workforce productivity, and business agility without sacrificing security or control, Rowe said.

Starting from a lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in late 1996, Akamai shook the industry with its first product offering - content acceleration - in 1999, and began working on transformation from a one-product success to a platform since.

Akamai now delivers 15-30 percent of all Web traffic, and powers the hyper-connected world with the platform that now handles more than a trillion interactions each day, while creating a protected environment for mission-critical transactions at the same time.

"Today, the Akamai Intelligent Platform secures and accelerates over 1,000 highly dynamic cloud applications," Rowe said.

Cloud computing, as he elaborated, addresses a key need for companies operating in the hyper-connected world by providing the efficient infrastructure necessary to support an agile business, a mobile workforce, and a global customer base using multiple devices.

It is not just a set of technological advances, but also a business and operational paradigm shift to meet the needs of a fast changing marketplace, he added.

"No longer are we in a world where consumers and employees 'go online' to work, play, or purchase; we are now in a world where everyone and everything simply is online, whether at home, at school, at the office, or on-the-go," he said.

The cloud computing industry is predicted to generate a $149 billion market by 2014 at an annual rate of 20-30 percent, according to Gartner Inc, a US information technology research and advisory company.