Akamai Technologies announced the development of a protocol that facilitates communications between caches and Akamai’s global network of servers. In separate announcements, the Company also released that leading cache vendors are implementing the new protocol. The added functionality will be derived by the development of a new standard for communications called the Cache Interface Protocol. The development of this protocol will enable caches to report on their performance – such as the number of hits served – to Web site owners through Akamai’s content delivery services. This development will expand the level of functionality in the caching market for the benefit of both ISPs and Web site owners. Akamai will make the protocol available to third parties at no cost. Caching and Internet content delivery are separate and complementary products. Caches are hardware and/or software systems sold to ISPs and enterprises for the purpose of reducing bandwidth expense and improving Internet performance. Akamai’s FreeFlow service is sold to major Web sites to improve speed and reliability, and is built upon a global network of servers deployed at ISPs’ points-of-presence (POPs) and data centers. Today, many ISPs which have installed caches also have Akamai’s servers located alongside them. Whenever Internet users request popular content from Akamai’s Web site customers, these ISPs’ caches transparently retrieve it from Akamai servers, even when it is marked uncacheable, ensuring that only fresh content is delivered. www.akamai.com