Accelerate and protect non-cacheable, IP-based applications — for any user, on any device, anywhere — without building a private WAN. IP Accelerator uses Akamai’s SureRoute for IP (SRIP) overlay to improve performance and availability over the public internet while preserving end-to-end encryption and adding practical access controls.
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) picks routes based on policy and the shortest AS path, not on real-time performance. That can send traffic through congested or lossy paths and take too long to react to impairments.
IP Accelerator continuously measures path health across Akamai’s global edge and routes each flow over the fastest, most reliable paths. The service: - Shortens the distance over best-effort internet by on-ramping users to the closest Akamai edge and carrying traffic over the SRIP overlay. - Avoids congestion and brownouts with dynamic, real-time path selection and fast failover. - Reduces packet loss and jitter with techniques like packet replication across diverse network paths. - Lowers round trips and smooths throughput with TCP optimizations such as connection reuse and pacing.
The result is lower latency, fewer timeouts, and more consistent performance versus vanilla BGP over the public internet.
Protect custom protocols and non-HTTP applications without giving up encryption or control: - End-to-end encryption preserved: No SSL/TLS termination or decryption on Akamai. - Client Access Control (CAC): Define the set of origin IP addresses end users are authorized to reach for an IP-based application. - Origin Access Control (OAC): Operational controls to acknowledge/track Akamai server IP changes as published in Control Center. - Fast IP Blocking (FIPB): Quickly block traffic from specified IPs or regions at the edge before it reaches your origin. - Rate limiting: Throttle abusive or misbehaving sources to protect capacity and stabilize performance. - Allowed ports and IPv6 support: Restrict exposure and ensure compatibility with modern stacks.
Both solutions use an overlay to steer traffic over measured-better paths than BGP. Key differences to consider when accelerating latency-sensitive, non-cacheable IP apps:
Cloudflare: Argo Smart Routing primarily targets HTTP/S. For non-HTTP IP traffic, you typically add services like Spectrum (L4 proxy) or Magic services (network-level) alongside Argo for Packets.
Encryption model
Cloudflare: HTTP/S acceleration typically terminates TLS at the edge for L7 features. For L4 TCP/UDP via Spectrum, TLS pass-through is possible; confirm mode per use case.
Feature set for IP apps
Cloudflare: Capabilities vary by product combination; evaluate which services are required to match your protocol, security, and encryption requirements.
Evaluation approach
If you need better-than-internet performance for custom protocols but want to avoid MPLS or a DIY private backbone: - Direct traffic to the nearest Akamai edge. - Let SRIP select the best-performing path across Akamai’s global network. - Use packet replication and TCP optimizations to counter loss and long-haul latency. - Preserve end-to-end encryption with no SSL/TLS termination.
This managed overlay approach delivers WAN-like consistency over the public internet — with faster time to value and minimal operational overhead.
For latency-sensitive, IP-based applications that must keep end-to-end encryption: - Any TCP/UDP port support with no content caching - No SSL/TLS termination or decryption; preserves application-layer encryption - Performance-aware, real-time path selection across a large global footprint - Loss mitigation (e.g., multipath replication) and rapid failover - TCP optimization (connection reuse, pacing) to reduce round trips - Fine-grained access controls: allowed ports, IP/geo blocking, rate limiting - Operational simplicity: DNS-based steering or straightforward endpoint configuration, plus clear visibility/metrics - IPv6 readiness and global scale for consistent user experience