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NSDI '05 — Abstract

ACMS: The Akamai Configuration Management System

Alex Sherman, Akamai Technologies and Columbia University; Philip A. Lisiecki and Andy Berkheimer, Akamai Technologies; Joel Wein, Akamai Technologies and Polytechnic University

Abstract

An important trend in information technology is the use of increasingly large distributed systems to deploy increasingly complex and mission-critical applications. In order for these systems to achieve the ultimate goal of having similar ease-of-use properties as centralized systems they must allow fast, reliable, and lightweight management and synchronization of their configuration state. This goal poses numerous technical challenges in a truly Internet-scale system, including varying degrees of network connectivity, inevitable machine failures, and the need to distribute information globally in a fast and reliable fashion.

In this paper we discuss the design and implementation of a configuration management system for the Akamai Network. It allows reliable yet highly asynchronous delivery of configuration information, is significantly fault-tolerant, and can scale if necessary to hundreds of thousands of servers.

The system is fully functional today providing configuration management to over 15,000 servers deployed in 1200+ different networks in 60+ countries.

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Last changed: 9 June 2005 rc
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