Live sport helps drive new web traffic high for Akamai

Intelligent edge platform Akamai has set a new company record for peak traffic on its global content delivery network.

On Tuesday 11 December 11 the volume of data being delivered across the Akamai network exceeded 72 Tbps, surpassing the 70 Tbps threshold for the first time in the company’s 20-year history.

“In a year during which Akamai has set numerous records, it’s fitting that we end 2018 on high note,” said Akamai CEO and co-founder Dr Tom Leighton. “The scale, reach and intelligence of our network is the reason Akamai was able to help our media customers deliver this summer’s FIFA 2018 World Cup Russia – the largest sporting event we’ve supported.

“It’s why more than 10 million people were able to simultaneously stream the Indian Premier League championship cricket match, and it’s how earlier this year Akamai successfully absorbed the single-biggest recorded DDoS attack in history. It’s through the power of the Akamai platform that we’re able to consistently deliver events of unprecedented scale while continuing to provide thousands of customers with the unparalleled performance that they’ve come to expect.”

The record-setting volume of traffic, which is comparable to delivering more than 10 million DVDs per hour, was driven primarily by live sports events, gaming releases and major software updates along with elevated traffic levels from many of the world’s largest e-commerce sites. During the same day, Akamai processed hundreds of billions of API requests, hundreds of millions of dollars in e-commerce transactions, and trillions of internet interactions overall.

The record comes on the heels of significant year-over-year growth in holiday shopping traffic this season. Akamai delivered an average of 83% more online retail traffic for the combination of Singles’ Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year than during the same major shopping days in 2017.