Thursday, September 18, 2003

Weather Site Turns to Akamai to Handle Hurricane Traffic Surge

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) quickly deployed Akamai's EdgeSuite content distribution service to handle a burst in traffic to its weather-related web sites related to Hurricane Isabel. Since deploying EdgeSuite over a week ago, NOAA.gov has been able to scale on demand to support landmark levels of traffic of over 9 million hits per hour as the public has been contacting the site to access updated satellite images and a tracking map that features the hurricane's projected path and time of arrival. The site normally averages 1.8 million hits per day. The Akamai EdgeSuite service enables the generation and delivery of dynamic content by constructing Web pages from component pieces that can be targeted and delivered from locations optimized for each Web site visitor. Other government agencies using the Akamai service include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of the Navy, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Government Printing Office, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, and the Voice of America, among others.
http://www.akamai.com