Define your project

Your ​Akamai​ account team will send you information about your account so you can get started, including:

• Your ​Akamai​ account name and contract ID.
• Content Provider (CP) Codes used for reporting and billing
• An administrator login for ​Akamai Control Center​

In order to facilitate a successful implementation, you'll need technical resources available within your organization that can make the required DNS changes, configure origin property settings, complete testing, and go live so your application can run over the intelligent edge platform. Ideally, your implementation team consists of:

• a project manager,
• a technical lead, and
• functional specialists for specific phases of the implementation.

This section contains information on components that may require additional planning for your implementation. Contact your account representative if you have questions on how to implement features within your API Acceleration property configuration.

Compliance Modules

Factor in time to review your application's software security and compliance status, if your application will use a compliance module, such as:

• BITS (a software assurance framework for the financial services industry)
• FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act)
• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
• ISO (Information Security Management)
• PCI (Payment Card Industry)

Device Characterization

If your application will use Device Characterization, you'll need to assess your device-based content, and determine the Match Criteria and Forward Header settings to use. Things to consider:

• What types of devices do you expect your customers to use? For example, a desktop computer or a mobile phone.
• What combination of characteristics do these devices have? For example, large screen vs. small screen, different operating systems, Ethernet connection vs. cellular or Wi-Fi connection.
• How do you want to customize content based on those characteristics?
  Think about how you will classify devices and what kind of user experience you want to serve to each device class. For example, for mobile phones you'll want content in a format that fits on small screens.

Edge Load Balancing

If you will be using Edge Load Balancing, you'll need to configure your traffic management system and create rules for the origin definition, failover, and session persistence.

Mobile Detection and Redirect

If your application will use Mobile Detection and Redirect, you'll need to define match rules and redirect settings for the mobile devices.

Multiple Data Centers/Multiple Origins

If you use multiple origin data centers, you and your account team should discuss how your data centers are set up before proceeding with your configuration. Determine the purpose of the various origins and how they should be set up in the configuration. In addition, take into consideration:

• Cacheable objects - There are ways to avoid caching multiple instances of the same object obtained from different origins.
• SureRoute - By default, SureRoute assumes that only one origin location needs to be evaluated when determining the optimal edge-to-origin routes.

NetStorage

When implementing NetStorage, you may need to:

• Get a separate Content Provider (CP) code for NetStorage.
• Set up an upload account.
• Define how you are going to manage the content, for example FTP, rsync, etc.

Learn more about NetStorage.

SSL Certificates for Secure Delivery

If you are using the Secure Option, which provides a highly reliable and secure platform for secure content, you will need an SSL certificate. The time this requires varies depending on the certificate type, but in many cases the certificate is available in 5-7 days. Learn more about Certificate Provisioning.