Content delivery specialist Akamai Technologies has been talking about running applications and Web services at the edge of the Internet for some time. In fact, the executives at Akamai say they have viewed their content delivery network as a perfect platform for distributed computing right from the start.

Until recently, though, CDNs were focused simply on delivering content. First it was static content, then dynamic content and now much attention is being paid to application delivery. The point is that Web-enabled applications will face the same bottlenecks and performance problems that content faces when it traverses the Internet. CDNs say they can help solve those problems by pushing not just content closer to end users, but also the application processing that needs to be done.

In that vein, Akamai and IBM have announced Akamai EdgeComputing Powered by WebSphere. It's Akamai's first formal Web services offering. Akamai last year announced partnerships with both IBM and Microsoft to work on developing Web services-related technologies. Akamai is expected to introduce a service to push .Net processing out to the edge by year-end.

In the meantime, users can push their WebSphere-based applications out onto Akamai's network of thousands of edge servers. Java processing happens within Akamai's edge servers, reducing the strain on origin servers. Plus users get the benefits of a CDN, which intelligently routes traffic and ensures that content is accessed from the server closest to the end user.

Akamai EdgeComputing Powered by WebSphere is available now from both Akamai and IBM Global Services. Pricing wasn't released.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.