Akamai collaborates with cisco to develop enterprise network offerings

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the provider of cloud services for delivering, optimizing and securing online content and business applications announced plans for future integration of Akamai Unified Performance technology into the Cisco® ISR-AX series of routers.

Both companies intend to co-develop enterprise network offerings, aimed at delivering the world's first enterprise WAN and Internet optimization solution to provide a secure, high-quality end user experience for both public and private cloud applications to all remote offices.

"With the proliferation of public and hybrid cloud architectures, Cisco and Akamai customers face the need to increase bandwidth and deliver business critical applications utilizing the Internet as a fast, secure, and cost effective WAN option," said Rob Soderbery, SVP and GM, Cisco Enterprise Networking Group.

He further added, "We are looking forward to integrating Akamai's exciting new branch capabilities into the industry leading application delivery platform, the Cisco® ISR-AX. With our joint product development plan, Cisco and Akamai have taken a big step toward delivering the optimal branch experience."

The intent of both Akamai and Cisco is to utilize the Internet as a fast, reliable, cost-effective WAN option to address the exploding traffic requirements on corporate networks and deal with the architectural challenges hybrid clouds impose on traditional hub-and-spoke networks.

"Akamai and Cisco share a common vision of improving the speed and reliability of the Internet to provide enterprises with a very cost-effective way to meet the bandwidth and performance needs of branch offices," said Tom Leighton, CEO of Akamai.

"Our ultimate goal is to integrate best of breed technology from the two industry leaders in networking and application delivery and enable customers to extend the strength of our platform behind their firewall," Leighton added.