1. HP and Akamai Wins $469M Content Delivery Services Contract from DoD
HP won a $469M contract from the Department of Defense to provide Global Content Delivery Services to the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The estimated completion date for the contract is June 29, 2018. The winners have been tasked to “meet current and future content delivery environment workloads”. HP and Akamai partnered on the deal, beating out two other companies. Also, HP will provide additional cyber security services for all global agency locations. As for Akamai, they have done a good job of partnering with the largest global systems integrators, including IBM. A interesting tidbit is that Akamai is the default CDN for “All branches of the U.S. military “.Â
2. Fastly Adds CSO To The Ranks and Expands Infrastructure
Fastly just added a Chief Security Officer to the executive ranks. Window Snyder, who previously worked at Apple and Mozilla, will assist Fastly build out their security portfolio. It’s a great move, and the timing is perfect. First, Fastly worked tirelessly to develop the fastest CDN platform on the planet. Then they expanded into video. Now its security. Watch out CyberSecurity CDNs, because here comes Fastly. In other news, Fastly has added a ton of servers, PoPs, and capacity all over the world. Don’t let me down Fastly – I predicted that you would be larger than Level 3 and Limelight in 3 Years.
3. Limelight Introduces File Delivery Service
Limelight has introduced a new service for delivering large files “end-to-end” called Orchestrate for File Delivery. It sounds somewhat similar to Akamai’s and Level 3’s media solution called Content Exchange. However, Limelight doesn’t mention anything about delivering native video files over a private B2B ecosystem, only large software files. Content Exchange is B2B service that enable broadcasters, studios and post production houses to upload large native video files to the cloud, and exchange them with partners. Native video files can be as large as 200GB is size, and the exchange uses a UDP high performance file transfer product like Aspera. However, Limelight only mentions the delivery of large software files, which really isn’t a differentiator, because most CDNs do large file (software) delivery by default. Once I get more clarity, I can review more in-depth.
4. SiteLock Continues to Expand Security Portfolio
SiteLock, the security focused CDN founded in 2008 continues to add depth to its security portfolio. In fact, it has one of the most extensive security feature sets in the Ecosystem. Their features include WAF, DDoS Mitigation, Vulnerability Scanning, Malware Detection, Automated Pen Testing, Source Code Testing, and a few other goodies. I have a feeling SiteLock will get acquired in the next 16 months. There are many infrastructure companies that are in desperate need of a SiteLock type security portfolio. There is a good chance that SiteLock will get acquired by its Scottsdale neighbor Godaddy, especially now that Godaddy “is in the money” having gone public, and has a valuation close to $5B. SiteLock is a privately held company, but I have a funny feeling that the legendary Bob Parson of GoDaddy is an investor in SiteLock.