Akamai sees record of 3.4Tbit/s for web content

Over 3.4 Terabits per second of Web traffic, 12m requests per second

The global network of Akamai Technologies reached an all-time high for total content served last week  Driven by demand for premium online coverage of major sporting events as well as customer product announcements and software releases, the Akamai EdgePlatform reached a new, single-day peak of 3.45 Terabits per second (Tbit/s) of content served on Friday, April 9^th.  This rate of content served is Akamai’s highest in more than ten years in business, and represents total, simultaneous content served to over 3,100 customers worldwide.

The traffic peak of 3.45 Tbit/s is roughly equivalent to the capacity needed to download the entire printed contents of the U.S. Library of Congress in less than a minute.

“This new peak demand demonstrates the Internet’s emergence as a primary channel for communications, entertainment, and commerce,” said Paul Sagan, Akamai’s President and CEO.  “Interest in online news, entertainment, and sporting events, combined with major enterprise product announcements and software launches from leading companies, drove new levels of demand for Akamai services.  Most notably, in just the six months since announcing the Akamai HD Network, we have seen many of the largest live events move to high definition video delivery.  Consumers now expect access to premium content online, and Akamai is uniquely capable of providing services that are helping to redefine television quality and scale on the Internet.”

In addition to reaching a milestone for peak traffic served this past Friday, the Akamai network also hit a new peak during the same day for video streaming, as well as a near high for total requests served. 

·         With online interest in major sporting events – including professional golf and baseball – helping to drive the surge in demand, Akamai delivered its largest ever traffic for high definition video streaming.

·         Over the course of the day, Akamai logged over 500 billion requests for content, a sum equal to serving content to every human once every 20 minutes.

·         At peak, Akamai supported over 12 million requests per second – a rate roughly equivalent to serving content to the entire population of the United States every 30 seconds.

Akamai's EdgePlatform is a network of more than 61,000 secure servers equipped with proprietary software that relies on applied mathematics and algorithms to help solve congestion and vulnerability problems on the Internet.  These servers reside within approximately 1,000 of the world's networks and are monitoring the Internet in real time.  Akamai uses this intelligence to optimize routes and replicate data dynamically to deliver content and applications more quickly, reliably, and securely.

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