Akamai expands cloud portfolio with launch of its new app platform for enterprises

Akamai Technologies has introduced the Akamai App Platform, a cloud-agnostic solution designed to streamline the deployment, management, and scaling of distributed applications. This new platform is intended to simplify the operational complexities often faced by organizations using Kubernetes, a popular open-source container orchestration system. 

The Akamai App Platform is built on Kubernetes technology acquired earlier this year from Red Kubes, specifically the Otomi framework. This acquisition allows Akamai to provide pre-built templates that help address common challenges in managing Kubernetes clusters at scale.  

By using these templates, developers can deploy applications in less than an hour, a significant improvement over traditional multi-month setup times. The platform automates much of the provisioning process, enabling near-instant scalability as workloads expand, the company said. 

Ari Weil, Vice President of Product Marketing, Akamai, said, “We’re giving them a better way by harnessing the power and potential of the open source ecosystem to strike a balance between the ease of use of the one-size-fits-all hyperscale world and the flexibility and control afforded by open source.” 

The platform’s Golden Path templates offer a standardized approach to application deployment, which simplifies operational complexity. This includes tools for observability, security, workload compliance, CI/CD pipelines, service mesh, and cloud-native storage. By offering these integrations, Akamai reduces Kubernetes sprawl and establishes a consistent environment across teams, which can accelerate the time to market for containerized applications, it said. 

In February 2024, Akamai introduced its Gecko project, an initiative to bring cloud capabilities directly to the edge. Gecko aims to create a distributed cloud network that allows workloads to operate closer to end users, enhancing application performance and security. By integrating Gecko into its platform, Akamai combines traditional cloud functions with edge capabilities, enabling enterprises to move workloads closer to users.