Guest: Ari Weil (LinkedIn)
Company: Akamai
Show Name: Cloud: Evolution
Topics: Edge Computing

The stakes in streaming have never been higher. It’s no longer enough to deliver video at scale—companies must deliver it securely, efficiently, and without compromise. That’s the vision behind Akamai’s integration of Harmonic’s VOS360 solution.

Compute at the Edge, Not Just the Origin

Ari Weil, VP of Product Marketing at Akamai, emphasized how architectures for media are becoming more compute- and memory-intensive. Akamai’s response is to use its distributed cloud to push workloads closer to the user. “We can push compute and transcoding use cases for media streaming closer to the user, not just closer to the point of origin,” Weil explained. This reduces round trips, lowers costs, and minimizes latency.

By leveraging Akamai’s infrastructure, including the assets gained through the Linode acquisition, media providers gain high throughput, low latency, and new flexibility in scaling their streaming workloads.

Protecting Revenue and Brand Equity

Performance alone isn’t enough. Piracy and malicious activity threaten monetization and brand trust. “We can apply our security products at the edge so that we can identify bots, malicious activity, or pirated streams,” Weil said. Whether frustrating attackers before they compromise a stream or shutting down unauthorized broadcasts, Akamai ensures that only pristine, monetizable content reaches viewers.

This layered approach—distributed compute for performance, edge security for protection—underscores Akamai and Harmonic’s shared goal: making global streaming both scalable and safe.