Akamai’s acquisition of Ondat will enable more complex logic and application to be defined at the edge. Here are a few examples of what geographically distributed application can be developed using these new services:
- Storing persistent session data at the edge
- Containerizing a CMS and running it on a stateful database at the edge
- Payment processing at the edge to handle simultaneous distributed transaction requests
- Personalizing experiences by stitching specific content such as ads with video files
- Real-time logging analysis to get visibility into who is viewing advertisements
- Server-side render on demand, in the context of the current user for single-page app powered by React or Vue
- Authentication at the edge using containerized directory services
- Configuring the limiting, request validation, batching/unbatching, and routing without relying on cache
- Live writing and reading of data for geographically close endpoints, such as ride-sharing or food delivery apps
- Data sovereignty use cases, where personal data is processed locally, at the edge
- Direct communication between edge nodes to fulfil requests or transactions, such as chat messages
Ondat’s persistent storage runs on any Kubernetes cluster and supports stateful applications. Deploying full applications at the edge lowers the inherent latency for distributing content or services to a global audience. It also means that there is a lower dependency on the network and central servers for fulfilling requests. In a Kubernetes environment, these can be scaled up and down depending on demand per location, resulting in better scalability and flexibility.
It’s worth noting that Cloudflare, for example, has been offering a stateful database via D1 since 2022, and we have already used it to create edge SEO tooling for our customers. Compared to D1, Ondat’s persistent Kubernetes storage can be a more flexible solution as it can also support other types of stateful services, including Kafka, Elasticsearch, Jenkins, Prometheus, NGINX, MySQL, Argo, Weaveworks, and more.
Combining this new persistent storage offering with Akamai’s serverless EdgeWokers, as well as IaaS-based offerings inherited from the Linode acquisition, can enable enterprises to build fully fleshed applications at the edge. Merj can leverage these capabilities to build and run geographically distributed applications to support new products, improve user experience, optimise resource usage, and enhance performance monitoring. To learn more about Merj’s development services at the edge, contact us today.