Cloud Files Utilises Akamai Content Delivery Network (CDN)

The technology behind Cloud Files provides unlimited online storage on demand. Easily upload, store and transfer files and digital media. And, in an industry first, you can deliver that content to your users at high speeds over Akamai's Content Delivery Network (CDN).

We have partnered with Akamai to create a complete storage-to-delivery solution. Akamai’s CDN is made up of nearly one hundred thousand servers, deployed in 72 countries and spanning most of the networks within the Internet. Today Akamai handles tens of billions of daily Web interactions for their customers such as Audi, NBC, Fujitsu, U.S. Department of Defense and NASDAQ.

Why is this important for a Rackspace customer?
Have you ever visited a website from your phone or laptop where the images take ages to load? Or tried to download a file that takes far too long? What happens if any of your customers are trying to access your website from another part of the world? Well if your files and images are only served from one location your customers could be experiencing the same delays and frustrations with pages not loading completely and providing a negative experience.

By utilizing Akamai’s CDN globally Rackspace Cloud Files helps to minimize the time it takes for images, video and files to be shown or downloaded.

Feature	Benefit
CNAMEs	CNAMEs allow customers to take their CDN URLs, which are usually a long mix of letters and numbers, and turn them into shorter branded URLs. With CNAMEs, your website can be fully branded exactly how you want it.
SSL	SSL, or secure socket layer, delivery is a way to add more security to your content delivery. Objects are encrypted as they pass all the way from the browser to the origin server.
Edge Purge	Edge Purge allows users to expire content on the edge server before the object’s time to live (TTL) has expired. This protects customers from having outdated content cached on the edge for longer than they intended.
HTTP Compression	HTTP compression takes files that are not already compressed, like text files, and compresses them before sending them across the internet. This means your data objects may be smaller (think lower bandwidth fees) and have faster overall responses times.
Streaming	Use some of the most popular players to stream video (with random seek) over Akamai’s CDN via HTTP delivery.