Akamai goes DBaaS with Linode Managed Database service
The Linode Managed Database service is set to debut, bringing support for the MySQL database and expanding support to include PostgreSQL, Redis and MongoDB in the coming months.
Content delivery network vendor Akamai is getting into the DBaaS market with the upcoming launch of its Linode Managed Database service.
Akamai introduced the new service on April 25, and it is set to be generally available on May 4.
The Linode Managed Database has been in open beta since March 9. The managed database service will be the first major release from Akamai since the company's $900 million acquisition of cloud platform vendor Linode on Feb. 17.
Akamai, best known until now as a CDN provider, with Linode is moving into the public cloud arena, providing infrastructure as a service as well as managed cloud applications.
The Linode Managed Database offering was initially developed by Linode before the Akamai acquisition and will provide support for the open source version of the MySQL database. The Linode DBaaS offering is set to be available in Linode's 11 global data centers with plans to grow into the larger Akamai network footprint over the course of the year.
RedMonk analyst KellyAnn Fitzpatrick said she has seen CDN vendors bolster their product portfolios to compete for general-purpose workloads. It was that strategic trend that contributed to Akamai's acquisition of Linode, she noted.
"By adding managed databases to its offering, Linode aims to further augment its ability to service a wide class of workloads," Fitzpatrick said. "Managed database offerings help simplify deployment and ease friction for development and operations teams."
Why Akamai is getting into DBaaS with the Linode Managed Database service
Blair Lyon, vice president of cloud experience at Linode, said the reason the vendor originally started to build out a managed database service was because it was one of the most common requests from users.
By adding managed databases to its offering, Linode aims to further augment its ability to service a wide class of workloads.
KellyAnn FitzpatrickAnalyst, RedMonk
"It has been a frequent and extensive request from our customers to be able to have a 'click-button-to-launch' approach for a database cluster," Lyon said.
Lyon said Linode has been building out the managed database service over the course of 2022 and in recent months ahead of the full launch has focused on enabling a reliable service that can be rapidly deployed in any of Linode's data centers.
Meanwhile, Akamai is looking to enable the service in the future across its distributed footprint, providing more locations from which the managed database offering will be available, Lyon said.
"We'll be able to deploy this capability eventually into hundreds of locations, getting data that much closer to the customers, driving latency down and just improving overall performance," he said.
More database support coming to Linode Managed Database service
Linode has had a strong focus on small and midsize organization that were looking for an alternative to larger public cloud providers such as AWS, Google and Microsoft Azure; Akamai has tended to focus on larger organizations.
Lyon said that with the managed database service there is likely to be a mix of users, including Linode's traditional customer base as well as Akamai customers from bigger organizations.
"We think there's lots of opportunity because managing a database cluster is difficult," he said.
The initial launch of the Linode Managed Database service is with MySQL, as it was the most requested database by Linode's users. Lyon said the vendor plans to add support for PostgreSQL, Redis and MongoDB in the coming months.
