Belnet spoke to Niels Bakker, responsible for cooperation with Akamai's Internet Exchange Partners.

Can you briefly describe the activities of Akamai?

Akamai is a global provider of edge services, including edge security, web and mobile performance, enterprise access and video delivery solutions. The company operates one of the world's largest distributed Edge platforms.

How did Akamai end up at BNIX?

Akamai started peering at BNIX in the winter of 2013 but our cooperation with Belnet dates back to 2004.

Which network solution did you use before?

Since Akamai was founded in 1998, we have deployed our caching infrastructure in numerous locations worldwide, working directly with most of the large Internet Service Providers. The Internet Exchanges such as BNIX allow Akamai to complement clusters of servers dedicated to a particular ISP with nodes serving larger parts of the Internet.

What were the main reasons for Akamai to join BNIX?

Presence at BNIX allows Akamai to serve content of our customers to end-users of the smaller Belgian ISP as the primary way of delivery and provides a backup and overflow solution for the ones having direct connectivity with Akamai. The key value in the eyes of Akamai is possibility to be close to the Belgian customers and provide them with the best quality of experience.

What has changed access to BNIX for Akamai?

We have been working hand in hand for many years making sure that Belgian subscribers have access to the wide scope of content delivered locally and with possibly low latency: live streaming and VoD, gaming and OS downloads, web pages and applications.

How do you experience the interaction with our organization?

Akamai is planning to remain member of BNIX going forward and to continue growing our capacity in Brussels. We are happy to peer with every other company present at your Internet Exchange.