Akamai Buys Velocitude to Power Mobile Delivery

As consumers use mobile devices to view more multimedia content, content delivery market leader Akamai is investing in technology to broaden its support for the growing universe of web-enabled devices. Akamai (AKAM) announced Thursday that it has acquired substantially all of the assets of Velocitude, a mobile services platform. With this acquisition Akamai gains mobile content transformation functionality, a complement to its existing suite of cloud services. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We believe Velocitude has developed a powerful set of solutions to enable optimal mobile Internet experiences across a multitude of different devices,” said Akamai CEO Paul Sagan. “By integrating Velocitude into our global network, we will be able to offer customers a way to leverage Akamai cloud-based services for mobile performance, as well as to translate Web sites into specific device-optimized experiences.”

Velocitude CEO and founder Adam House Sr. will become vice president of mobile applications, as the 20 person company is wrapped into Akamai’s mobile team. The Fort Lauderdale-based company launched about a year ago and provides mobile web sites for Office Depot and AutoNation, among others.

The Velocitude software detects the mobile platform and automatically configures the web site to appear properly on the phone.  The solution is unique in the industry as a software-as-a-service mobile platform that has transformed many top-name PC-oriented web sites into viewable mobile sites. Velocitude’s explained that “unlike desktop Web browsing, where you can take time to search through a complex site, the average mobile user is looking to find a limited amount of information quickly. Convenience and speed, rather than breadth of content, define the experience demands of the mobile user.”

World Cup: A ‘Watershed’ Web Traffic Event?

Goal! With World Cup Soccer action set to kickoff in two days, content delivery networks are expecting increased Internet traffic related to online viewing of the matches, especially since some are scheduled during work hours in the U.K. and throughout Europe. Projections are that tens of millions of fans, including some cubicle dwellers, will be watching the football via their monitors as well as their mobiles, or cell phones.

Like other content delivery networks, Akamai Technologies, Inc., has been building its capability in anticipation of World Cup traffic, the company told the Associated Press. The content distribution network which delivers about 20 percent of the world’s Internet traffic said it expects traffic to be “two or three times as heavy” as what was measured during President Barack Obama’s inauguration — thus far, the high point for traffic volume at about 1 terabit, or 1 trillion bits of data, per second.

“It could well be another watershed event in terms of people understanding what is now possible to do with video online,” Akamai Chief Scientist Tom Leighton told the AP. “This will draw a lot of people at once and that will cause people to be aware en masse that, hey, you can do some very cool things with video online that you can’t even do with broadcast right now.”

If you’d like to see the traffic visually, check out Akamai’s Real Time Web Monitor, which features a tool that monitors real time traffic to the global broadcasters delivering traffic over Akamai’s network. If you are interested in sport, here’s the World Cup Schedule

Roundup: Level 3, Force 10, Active Power

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

Level 3 CDN supports Indy 500. Level 3 Communications (LVLT) announced it provided content delivery network (CDN) services to support live online streaming of the 2010 Indianapolis 500 race on May 30.  Streamed in HD, the Level 3 network is used as a part of a deal with the IZOD IndyCar Series to stream all IZOD IndyCar Series races in 2010.  Video feeds of the race included race coverage as well as on-track and in-car footage, allowing viewers to see from the drivers’ perspective in real-time.

Force 10 unveils new S-Series switch.  Force 10 Networks announced the extension of its S-Series access switch line with the introduction of the S60 top-of-rack (ToR) Gigabit Ethernet switch.  The new switch represents a targeted solution for the virtualized data center environment where they hope to lower operational costs at the rack edge by leveraging new features and functionality.  “Introducing a line-rate GbE top-of-rack switch with 10 GbE uplinks demonstrates that Force10 is committed to building a solution that leverages non-blocking, line-rate switching performance to solve network performance issues today, while including architectural features that provide investment protection that will continue to optimize data center network efficiency in the future,” said Cindy Borovick, research vice president at IDC.  The S60 is currently being tested and is anticipated to begin shipping by the end of June.

Active Power delivers flywheel UPS to Shanghai company. Active Power (ACPW) announced that they have delivered two containerized CleanSource 250 kVA UPS systems to Shanghai Municipal Electric Power Company, one of the largest subsidiaries of the China State Grid.  “Active Power’s flywheel UPS technology has a very small footprint compared to conventional systems, making it possible for us to incorporate UPS equipment in a limited amount of space. The system is also flexible which works well with our existing containerized gensets,” said Mr. Jinxiu Zhang, deputy director, Marketing and Business Development at Shanghai Municipal Electric Power Company.  The mobile systems are currently deployed at the Shanghai World Expo 2010 and other uses would include schools or hospitals as needed or conferences, events or as rental units.

Rayburn: CDN Video Pricing is Stabilizing

The cost of video delivery over major content delivery networks (CDN) continued to trend lower in the first quarter of 2010, but at a more gradual rate than seen in recent quarters, according to industry analyst Dan Rayburn.

After a 40 percent price drop in 2009, video delivery pricing is on track for a 20 percent decline in 2010, according to Rayburn, who presented his latest industry pricing report at the Streaming Media East conference Tuesday in New York.

Better 2010 for Major CDNs?
“Pricing has stabilized quite a bit,” said Rayburn. “This points to a good 2010 for CDNs if traffic goes up. If pricing only declines 20 percent and CDN traffic grows 50 percent, these companies will do well.” Rayburn noted that the two leading content delivery providers,  Akamai (AKAM) and Limelight Networks (LLNW), reported strong earnings amid signs of traffic growth.

Rayburn’s survey (also available at CDNpricing.com), which is based on feedback from 1,000 end users of video delivery services, found that customers using 500 TB or more a month reported an average price range of 2 cents to 6 cents per gigabit in the first quarter, compared to a range of 2.5 cents to 8 cents last quarter. At lower volumes, pricing was either flat or slightly lower.

Earnings Roundup: Level 3, Internap, Limelight, AboveNet

Here’s a roundup of quarterly financial results announcements:

Level 3 reports 1st quarter results. Level 3 Communications (LVLT) reported consolidated revenue of $910 million for the first quarter of 2010, with a net loss of $238 million, or $0.14 per share.  Communications revenue accounted for $900 million of the overall $910 million revenue. “Our Core Network Services sales orders were up by more than 15 percent in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter. We believe that churn will continue to show improvement for the rest of the year.” said Sunit Patel, executive vice president and CFO of Level 3. See Telecom Ramblings for additional analysis.

Internap Sees Progress in Colo Shift: Internap (INAP) reported its first quarter results yesterday. Revenue of $63.4 million was reported with data center services growing 6 percent year-over-year and 2 percent sequentially to $33.7 million. “In data center services, we continued to make progress shifting our investment and operational focus to higher margin company-controlled facilities which simplifies our business and increases value to our stockholders,”said Eric Cooney, President and CEO of Internap. “And while it’s still early, our initiatives to revitalize Internap’s core IP services also appear to be yielding results.” Highlights of the quarter included the launch of XIP, a new service-based Internet traffic accelerator and the data center expansions in Seattle, Houston and Silicon Valley. Seeking Alpha has a transcript of the Internap earnings call.

Roundup: NTT America, Infoblox, Akamai, IBM

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

NTT America Enterprise cloud solution.  NTT America announced that it will offer an enterprise-grade, multi-tenant public cloud solution to its customers in the U.S. market. NTT America’s cloud will leverage OpSource’s cloud capabilities, the NTT Communications’ Global IP Network and its own data center infrastructure.  ”By pairing OpSource Cloud’s technology with NTT America’s secure data center infrastructure, companies can take advantage of a solution that is not only powerful and completely reliable but scalable, removing any remaining barriers to enterprises adopting cloud computing today,” said Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource.  Services are available in either pre-paid plans or month-to-month, pay as you go basis with no annual commitment.

Infoblox acquires Netcordia. Network infrastructure management provider Infoblox announced that it has acquired Netcordia for an undisclosed price. Products from the two companies complement each other as Infoblox handles hardware to handle tasks such as processing internet addresses, and Netcordia does network change and configuration management software. Robert Thomas, President and CEO of Infoblox, said that “Netcordia’s market momentum, customer base, technology and exceptional employees, coupled with Infoblox’s team and unique real-time data distribution and management expertise, will be invaluable to positioning Infoblox for continued success as a leading provider of both DDI and NCCM solutions.”

Akamai and IBM team for web applications delivery. Akamai (AKAM) announced a multi-phase collaboration with IBM to enable optimal technology configurations and integrations between Akamai’s Web application acceleration services and IBM’s WebSphere software. Pre-set configurations of IBM’s WebSphere DataPower Appliance are available today and with Akamai’s Web Application Accelerator service have shown ground breaking performance for delivering rich web applications to users all over the globe.  ”We continue to optimize selected WebSphere products to integrate with Akamai’s Web acceleration services, which gives our customers the ability to elastically scale application deployments without associated capital build out enabling them to react more rapidly to business opportunities and changes,” said Jerry Cuomo, IBM Fellow, Vice President and CTO, WebSphere. Akamai will be presenting sessions and showcasing a live display of its Network Operations Command Center (NOCC) during the IBM Impact 2010 event taking place in Las Vegas May 3-5. The tour of Akamai’s NOCC by Dr. Tom Leighton is a very interesting look into Akamai and the traffic they carry on the Internet.

Roundup: HP, Level 3, EMC

Here’s a roundup of some of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

HP completes 3Com acquisition.  HP (HPQ) announced it has completed the acquisition of 3Com Corporation at a price of $7.90 per share in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $2.7 billion. 3Com stock (COMS) jumped from $5.69 per share to $7.46 after the acquisition announcement and remained below $8. HP is planning on folding in the 3Com switching, routing and security offerings with existing HP ProCurve solutions, with complete integration announcements to come at a later date.  The 3Com H3C S9500E Series was named as a finalist in the 2010 Best of Interop – Infrastructure category.

Level 3 to demonstrate 3D streaming. Level 3 Communications (LVLT) announced its collaboration with Microsoft to deliver live and on-demand high definition, three-dimensional streaming for both PC and television using the Level 3 content delivery network(CDN). The technology will be demonstrated at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show in Las Vegas this week.  The 3D content delivered over Level 3’s CDN will use Microsoft Silverlight and can be delivered via HDMI to the new generation of 3D TVs and viewed with Polarized or Active Shutter glasses.  “This technology opens up a world of content to 3D streaming and offers new possibilities for event delivery starting as early as this year – major live sporting events or concerts streamed right to your television or computer in 3D,” said Peter Neill, senior vice president of Content Markets at Level 3.  On Friday Level 3 announced major upgrades to its Vyvx VenueNet infrastructure, in time for the start of U.S. professional football and hockey seasons.

EMC unveils deduplication array.  EMC Corporation announced the EMC Data Domain Global Deduplication Array (GDA), the industry’s fastest inline deduplication storage system for enterprise backup applications.  The GDA is based on a new multi-controller extension of the Data Domain architecture which offers a global namespace for all data stored in the dual controller system. The array provides up to 14.2 petabytes of logical backup capacity and throughput of 12.8 terabytes per hour.  That throughput enables up to 270 concurrent backup jobs access to the GDA. Brian Babineau, Senior Consulting Analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group said “with their Data Domain Global Deduplication Array, EMC has far exceeded the inline deduplication performance benchmark it set with its previous top-of-line Data Domain system, but more importantly, the company has given customers a way to protect more of their data in a shorter period of time.”  The EMC Data Domain Global Deduplication Array will be generally available in the second quarter of 2010.

CDN EdgeCast Raises $10 Million

Content delivery network EdgeCast Networks has closed a $10 million Series C financing led by Menlo Ventures, the company announced today. EdgeCast will use the funds to develop and launch new services, expand its global network, and accelerate the company’s sales and marketing programs.

Pravin Vazirani, managing director at Menlo Ventures, will join the EdgeCast board of directors. Steamboat Ventures, the venture arm of the Walt Disney Company (DIS) and leader of EdgeCast’s Series B financing, also participated in the new round. The latest round brings EdgeCast’s total funding to more than $20 million. The company became profitable in 4Q 2009, about two years after its public launch, and now serves more than 1,400 customers.

Juniper to Acquire Ankeena Networks

Juniper Networks (JNPR) announced that it is acquiring Ankeena Networks, a privately-held company focused on efficient delivery of video and other media content. Ankeena’s Media Flow Director product contains a multi-tier caching technology, providing up to a 10 to 1 reduction in the number of servers needed to deliver media, with a similar reduction in transit network and media delivery costs.

“Juniper’s acquisition of Ankeena reflects our commitment to transforming the experience and economics of networking — in this case by delivering an enhanced TV-like user experience of both fixed and mobile video traffic, while enabling crucial TCO reductions for operators,” said Manoj Leelanivas, executive vice president and general manager, Junos Ready Software at Juniper Networks.