Firms needing to accelerate enterprise IP-based applications which currently run over the public internet could be tempted by a new managed service launched today by global service provider Akamai.

The IP Acceleration Accelerator service supports business critical applications like VoIP, live chat and other back-office client/server packages delivered over protocols such as IP security or SSL virtual private network (VPN) tunnels, or over Citrix’ independent computing architecture.

Akamai solution director, David Keane, pointed out that the problem with running business applications over the internet was “the middle mile”. He explained, “We have an extensive content delivery network, around 25,000 systems in 73 countries. The premise of the company was that the internet grew in scale so much that network congestion was bound to occur and that there had to be a better way of moving information around than the border gateway protocol.”

Akamai’s founders developed algorithms for routing traffic around congestion areas and peering points on the internet. “For example, if you download an iTunes track, you don’t wait for it to be downloaded from the US, it’s taken from an Akamai server close to where you are,” said Keane. “The next evolution was to deliver complete web sites. So if you go to the Comet or Argos web site, you’re not going to their infrastructure, you’re going to ours and we accelerate those dynamic web sites.”

Akamai said the latest offering extends its EdgePlatform beyond web-based applications and allows any application using IP as the base protocol to be delivered over the public internet. Whilst enterprises might have fixed connections into key suppliers, they might also be dealing with suppliers who have no dedicated circuits involved, and use the public internet as their only way of connecting with customers.

Akamai aims to optimise delivery all the way to customer’s datacentres through use of an on-premise gateway, installed at the customer’s origin site. A number of Intel-based Linux servers are installed and the service is configured and managed remotely by Akamai. Users making a request would go to a nearby Akamai server. “So somebody based in Milan would be mapped to an Akamai server in Telecom Italia. That Akamai server would then find the best route back to the gateway region where the actual application sits,” said Keane.

Keane outlined the steps used by the service to deliver reduced latency and packet loss for firms over the public internet. Firstly a protocol called SureRoute checks the routes available and optimises the round trip latency and availability. A high performance transport protocol then optimises the transport of the packets by reducing the number of trips along this “best” path and also reduces packet loss.

Akamai refused to give specific pricing, and would only say that this was done on a bespoke basis and was “very competitive”.