Ion Use Cases
Ion provides an easy way to manage and improve performance. Below, we've listed Ion's major use cases and benefits.
Use Case |
Description |
Benefit |
Forward client GEO location |
Add client geolocation information on requests to the origin |
Collect client geolocation without running code or location services on the client’s device |
Forward client device information |
Add client device information on requests to the origin |
You don't need to run code on the client or origin to parse the user-agent string into device buckets |
Basic site failover |
Pull content from a different origin when the origin can’t be reached |
Increase the availability of non-cached content when servers can’t connect to the origin |
Dynamic A/B testing |
Test different experiences by getting content from different origins on per-request conditions |
Create a flexible workflow for A/B testing based on a set of rules defined within the Akamai platform |
Web site consolidation |
Consolidate multiple micro-services that run on different clouds into a single site |
Easily migrate a to a microservice architecture |
Resource optimization |
Use different compression methods for objects depending on client support |
Provide Zopfli/Brotli/Gzip compression depending on what’s supported by the end user’s device |
Script management |
Defer loading of slow performance scripts |
Automatically defer or block scripts that take a long time to load (i.e. 3rd party scripts that don't use a CDN) |
Real user monitoring |
Automatically capture real user metrics |
Capture and display end user performance beacons in minutes without having to add JavaScript beacons, or implement visualization reports/dashboards |
Browser loading optimizations |
Use HTTP/2 server push or font preload to improve load time |
Maximize browser optimizations without having to research and implement code |
HSTS & HTTP > HTTPS redirect |
Perform HTTP to HTTPS redirect and HSTS header inclusion at the edge |
Avoid implementing this additional functionality at origin |
Site token security |
Enforce header or cookie authentication |
Authorize access to content at the edge (i.e. to restrict access to videos residing on a cloud storage) a |
Redirects |
Issue HTTP Redirects at the Edge (i.e. vanity URLs like marketing campaigns) |
Generate redirects at the edge that load faster and don’t require changes on the origin side |
Offload popular assets to a Cloud Storage |
Offload static and large assets to Akamai NetStorage |
Reduce origin bandwidth and CPU by offloading popular and static assets to a cloud Storage |
Timed content release |
Schedule server-side rules that execute within a given timeframe |
Ensure the availability of content by scheduling a file to be automatically released on a specific date/time |