Akamai jumps into DBaaS market with Linode Managed Database

In a bid to meet demand from businesses that want to reduce or eliminate the overhead of managing databases, content delivery network and web security provider Akamai is releasing its first DBaaS (database-as-a-service) offering, close on the heels of acquiring cloud hosting provider Linode for $900 million in February this year.   Called Linode Managed Database, the managed service is being offered with support for MySQL initially across Linode’s 11 global data centers, the company said, adding that support for PostgreSQL, Redis and MongoDB is expected to follow later in the second quarter this year.

The company claims that most of its customers have requested a managed database service.

The announcement of Akamai’s first DBaaS offering is a strategic move to compete in the compute market, beyond Akamai’s existing content delivery and edge services, said Holger Mueller, principal analyst at Constellation Research.

“It is the logical next step of Akamai moving up the stack from content acceleration and caching to app platforms including databases,” Mueller said.

Akamai wants to capitalize on the growing trend of enterprises that want to subscribe to DBaaS offerings in order to avoid the complexity of managing databases, Mueller said. Akamai is also trying to influence developers to rethink how they go about conceptualizing and developing next generation applications, he added.

“The Linode Managed Database is tightly integrated with the Akamai network and so it is expected to have the right content and data in the right places as needed. With this Akamai is trying to propagate a new movement that pushes developers to re-invent app development from the network up,” Mueller said.

Akamai will be competing in the DBaaS market with cloud giants AWS, Microsoft and Google, as well as other vendors. Mueller expects that the Akamai’s DBaaS offering would be useful in particular for enterprises that build their own applications, especially consumer facing ones that need speed and consistency.