Integrating Security and Performance with Dr. Robert Blumofe EVP & CTO, Akamai

Likely on the phone in your hand, while you’re playing this very podcast, is an app or site using Akamai in the background, so that you can listen, search, and discover new information as fast as you can think, type, or speak. Accelerating the delivery of the right content and blocking potentially harmful content are the nitty-gritty details that Akamai solves to give you a safe and seamless experience. Leading the charge to improve security and accelerate connectivity is Dr. Robert Blumofe, Executive Vice President and CTO of Akamai. 

Main Takeaways

• Power and Protect Together: A common problem with security is that it slows things down for users and causes them to want to avoid using the security measures in the first place. To solve this problem, Dr. Blumofe explains that Akamai has integrated security and performance products on its platform so that they can work cooperatively. The lesson here for any sort of business is to constantly be considering how security and performance can function seamlessly so that neither is hindered by the other,
• Endpoint to Endpoint Mindset: Since the world is becoming more remote and more open, security must adapt to this environment. According to Dr. Blumofe, this means the framework of being on a network versus off a network is no longer really applicable. Instead, it is more helpful to consider how apps are connected together from one endpoint to another.
• The Office as a Coffee Shop: You can think about a new problem, like an increase in remote work, as being stressful, or as a chance to reframe it as an opportunity. Dr. Blumofe points out that returning to the office for face-to-face time will be even more purposeful — sort of like hanging out at the coffee shop with colleagues. He describes solving for the new remote office network as a high-performance coffee shop as being a “freeing and enabling concept.” The new perimeter-less architecture of access can actually facilitate collaboration.

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