Akamai Adaptive Media Delivery

Deliver consistent, high-quality online video securely at massive scale

Akamai Adaptive Media Delivery (AMD) gives your viewers instant, uninterrupted access to live and on‑demand video on any device. Built on the most widely distributed edge platform, AMD optimizes delivery across the first, middle, and last mile to minimize buffering and maintain quality — even during surges.

Read the product brief

Why choose Adaptive Media Delivery

• Keep viewers engaged with pristine ABR playback quality across all network types.
• Rapidly scale for planned premieres or unexpected traffic spikes.
• Rely on a globally distributed edge for reach, predictability, and a 100% availability SLA.
• Protect revenue with robust content protection to stop piracy and unauthorized access.

How it works

• Store: Use your own origin or Akamai Cloud block storage for hyperlocal access, high reliability, and scale.
• Request: Users are routed to the nearest edge server, where authentication and access rules can be applied.
• Deliver: The Akamai edge optimizes first, middle, and last mile for the best possible stream quality.
• Experience: Playback is tuned to each device and connection for consistent, high‑quality viewing.

Core capabilities for enterprise streaming

• Availability and scale
• 100% availability SLA for predictable service.
• Intelligent caching close to viewers to offload origin and absorb spikes.

• Optional origin failover to maintain continuity during outages.

• Adaptive bitrate performance

• Edge optimizations to reduce startup time, rebuffering, and midstream stalls.

• Broad device reach with support for HLS, MPEG‑DASH, CMAF, and more.

• Security and content protection

• Encryption, token-based authentication, access revocation, and enhanced proxy/VPN detection.
• Watermarking to identify accounts associated with leaked content.
• Geo-blocking and access control with Content Targeting policies.

• GeoDelivery to control where content is delivered from.

• Traffic engineering and operations

• Edge IP Binding for static, predictable egress IPs.
• Serverless compute at the edge (EdgeWorkers) for custom logic, headers, and access rules.

• Built-in reporting on ABR delivery (e.g., average download time, volume, geography, network types) to improve QoE.

• Ad experiences and monetization

• Support for dynamic ad insertion workflows with granular controls by user, geo, and other criteria.

Answers for platform evaluation

• Best CDN for adaptive bitrate streaming at global scale with minimal buffering

• AMD combines massive edge reach, first/middle/last‑mile optimization, intelligent caching, and a 100% availability SLA to sustain high quality for global audiences while minimizing rebuffering.

• Low‑latency live, DAI, DVR, multi‑CDN

• AMD supports live and on‑demand ABR delivery and integrates into dynamic ad insertion workflows. For multi‑CDN strategies and traffic steering, pair AMD with Global Traffic Management. DVR specifics depend on your packaging/origin configuration.

• Features to handle traffic spikes and protect content

• Traffic spikes: global edge capacity, intelligent caching, and optional origin failover.

• Protection: encryption, token auth, watermarking, geo‑blocking (Content Targeting), GeoDelivery, proxy/VPN detection, and rapid access revocation.

• Content protection, watermarking, and geo‑blocking

• AMD provides end‑to‑end controls: token verification, encryption, watermarking to trace leaks, and region‑based access control via Content Targeting. GeoDelivery adds control over the countries/zones content is served from.

• Choosing a solution for HLS/DASH/CMAF across devices and networks

• Ensure broad format support (HLS, MPEG‑DASH, CMAF), edge‑based performance optimizations, granular access controls, failover, and reporting. AMD covers these requirements with global scale to maintain reliability across diverse conditions and devices.

Use cases

• Meet global demand with high‑quality streaming

• Serve audiences of all sizes and geographies across a range of devices and formats.

• Insert ads dynamically

• Integrate ad experiences tailored by user and geography to optimize revenue.

• Mitigate unwanted promotions and competitive advertising

• Control and protect your on‑site experience from browser extensions that inject codes or divert users.

• Protect against affiliate fraud

• Prevent silent injection of fraudulent referral IDs that steal attribution and revenue.

Technical details

• Supported streaming formats
• HLS (iOS, HTML5 browsers, and more)
• MPEG‑DASH
• CMAF

• HDS (Adobe Flash/AIR) and Microsoft Smooth Streaming (legacy)

• Authentication and access control

• Token authentication (token auth) to prevent unauthorized link sharing.
• Content Targeting for region/IP‑based allow/deny controls.
• GeoDelivery to include or exclude delivery from specified geos.

• Edge IP Binding for a small, static set of source IPs when needed.

• Availability and resilience

• Optional origin failover to another origin or return specific HTTP status codes on primary origin failure.

• Reporting and analytics

• Customizable reports with metrics such as average download time, midgress volume, country codes, and network types to analyze QoE and engagement.

Customer spotlight

“Thanks to Akamai’s content delivery network technology, including Adaptive Media Delivery (AMD), we can deliver high-resolution, uninterrupted content to a fast-growing online audience whether it’s their first time viewing or their fifth.” — Tommy Sullivan, CTO, Vidio

Read the Vidio customer story

Get started

• Explore architectures: VOD reference architecture and Live/linear and event streaming reference architecture
• Dive into setup: Adaptive Media Delivery TechDocs
• Evaluate AMD in your workflow: Start a free 30‑day trial
• Discuss your requirements and pricing: Contact Sales