Download Delivery

Deliver large file downloads flawlessly, every time, at global scale

High-performance large file downloads and delivery

Accelerate large file distribution with Download Delivery, a high-performance solution that scales seamlessly to deliver gaming assets, software updates, OTA car updates, media, and more — quickly, reliably, and globally.

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Delight eager audiences everywhere with faster downloads

Maximize download completions

Accelerate large (> 100 MB) file downloads on the world’s most distributed edge platform.

Scale globally, on demand

Reach a massive global or regional audience without a costly build-out or complex setup.

Wow your audience

Deliver your games, software, and other file downloads flawlessly during major releases.

How Download Delivery works

Request

End user requests are routed to the optimal Akamai Cloud edge server.

Secure

Authentication for protected downloads and HTTPS for end-to-end security.

Respond

Fresh content is retrieved from the origin server, a public cloud of choice, or Akamai NetStorage on demand.

Report

Clear, comprehensive metrics via custom reports enable insight into use, traffic, origin offload, errors, and more.

Features

Serve content 100% of the time, aligning your brand with service predictability
Use optimizations like intelligent caching at the edge to boost users’ download performance

Secure content access with TLS options, token authentication, and enhanced proxy detection
Use a private connection between the edge and public cloud for cost-efficient data transfer

Enable development teams to take advantage of serverless compute capabilities at the edge
Gain insights into key performance indicators by uncovering trends and user engagement levels

Customer stories

Roblox

Using Akamai, the gaming company was able to deliver secure, consistent experiences for developers and players around the world.

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iQIYI

iQIYI relies on Akamai to deliver quality streaming experiences to it’s global audience.

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Sport Network

Sport Network, a sports media and advertising powerhouse, stays competitive in a fast-changing environment with Akamai solutions.

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Download Delivery Use Cases

Learn several different ways Download Delivery can be used to deliver large file-based content over the internet.

Deliver high-quality software download experiences

Keep gamers engaged with fast downloads

Deliver exceptional downloadable content

Deliver high-quality software download experiences

Software providers are expected to deliver consistent, secure, and optimized experiences to every user, across every device. When the download experience isn’t predictable and reliable, user engagement is likely to decrease, which can ultimately impact the bottom line. Growing online audiences can also be demanding and unpredictable. Software providers must be able to handle the spike in demand while meeting the expectations of their end users. An effective software distribution and download strategy is a key factor in keeping end users satisfied and engaged.

Download Delivery is built on the globally distributed Akamai Cloud for superior capacity, scalability, availability, and performance, and provides your end users with a predictable, fast download experience.

Common software user cases include:

Firmware updates, including OTA
Enterprise-wide software updates
New software releases and/or purchases

Keep gamers engaged with fast downloads

Success on day one is vital. Growing audiences can be demanding and unpredictable, which sometimes results in sudden spikes in demand during game launch events or when a game goes viral unexpectedly. Game publishers must be able to handle the spike in demand while meeting the expectations of players, or they’ll suffer the fallout of countless bad player experiences in the forms of negative reviews and a damaging brand perception. An effective content distribution and download strategy is a key factor in maximizing player acquisition, retention, and monetization.

Players expect frictionless experiences, which requires a combination of fast game downloads and nearly instant updates, as well as intelligent prepositioning of game assets on a player’s device before they’re requested.

Download Delivery provides high-performance online distribution optimized for games and other file-based content. Built on the globally distributed Akamai Cloud for superior capacity, scalability, availability, and performance, it offers your players a predictable, fast download experience that ensures they stay engaged while helping you confidently address your business goals.

Deliver exceptional downloadable content

Downloadable content exists across the web in social media images, downloadable video content, audio libraries, and more. Users expect instant access to this content when they request it — and when the experience isn’t predictable and reliable it can impact your brand and your business.

Users don’t understand, and frankly don’t care, about the complexity required to deliver a seamless user experience anywhere in the world on every type of device while also overcoming common internet challenges. Businesses that deliver downloadable content need to have an effective content distribution and download strategy for player engagement, retention, and monetization.

Download Delivery provides high-performance, reliable distribution of content on a global scale. Built on Akamai Cloud for superior capacity, scalability, availability, and performance, it enables you to provide a consistent, fast download experience for exceptional user experiences. Download Delivery can be coupled with Akamai performance products for an end-to-end download solution.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Download Delivery supports all types and sizes of content, but is ideal for large progressively downloaded videos and files that are larger than 100 MB, such as software, games, patches, firmware, etc.

Download Delivery includes an Akamai service-level agreement, which can be found in your customer portal account.

Download Delivery offers several different APIs, including property manager, certificate provisioning, and reporting.

Download Delivery is included with Akamai Game Delivery and Akamai Software Delivery, which are delivery solution sets that address specific needs for those players and users, respectively.

Akamai NetStorage is a highly scalable, feature-rich cloud storage solution, offering automatic geodistributed content replication for resiliency, high availability, and performance.

Download Delivery offers several reports that can be customized to meet your needs, including real-time data, historical traffic, historical performance, historical availability, historical URL requests, unique viewers, URL legacy reports for per-URL data, and proxy protection. Akamai also offers the Media Delivery Reports API that you can call to generate customized reports to meet your specific needs.

Download Delivery is not a content delivery network (CDN). It uses Akamai Cloud, the largest global distributed platform available in the world, which acts as the CDN. This enables Download Delivery to deliver content closer to your users, with no perceptible delay.

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