Akamai’s China Exit: What It Means for CDN Users and How to Migrate

Recently, the well‑known CDN provider Akamai announced it will cease its CDN operations in China, with the service ending on 30 June 2026.

From that date all Chinese CDN services will be discontinued; remaining requests will be served from neighboring countries unless a partner solution is enabled.

Akamai offers migration options: Tencent Migration Service is already available, while Wangsu migration will be launched soon.

The company gave users a year‑and‑a‑half to complete migration. Akamai, the inventor of CDN, serves about 90 % of internet users within one hop.

What is a CDN?

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) distributes content such as music, images, video, and applications across multiple servers worldwide so users can retrieve resources efficiently and reliably from a nearby location.

The concept dates back to 1995 when Tim Berners‑Lee and mathematician Tom Leighton recognized network congestion problems and sought algorithmic solutions. In 1996 Daniel Levin joined Leighton’s research group, leading to breakthroughs in CDN technology.

In 1998 Leighton and Levin founded the company that became Akamai, the pioneering CDN service.

CDNs act like distributed warehouses, allowing users to download from the nearest server, reducing routing hops, speeding up transfers, and improving experience.

Key benefits of CDNs include:

Solving the “first mile” problem for origin servers.

Alleviating bottlenecks between ISPs.

Reducing provincial outbound bandwidth pressure.

Lessening backbone network load.

Optimizing distribution of popular online content.

Components of a CDN network

Each CDN node functions like a web server placed near users. By taking over DNS, user requests are transparently directed to the nearest node, which responds like the origin server, resulting in faster response times.

The CDN layer sits between the user and the origin server.

Intelligent DNS scheduling (e.g., F5’s 3DNS)

Intelligent DNS handles domain resolution for CDN‑enabled sites, applying predefined policies to direct users to the closest node.

It also communicates with CDN nodes to monitor health and capacity, ensuring requests are routed to available nodes.

Cache services include:

Load‑balancing devices (e.g., LVS, F5 BIG‑IP).

Cache servers (e.g., Squid).

Shared storage.

Glossary

CNAME record

A CNAME (Canonical Name) maps one domain name to another, allowing aliasing of resources.

CNAME domain

When adding an accelerated domain in a CDN console, you receive a CNAME domain to which you point your DNS CNAME record, enabling CDN acceleration.

DNS

The Domain Name System translates domain names to IP addresses. Common DNS providers include Alibaba Cloud, DNSPod, Route53, Cloudflare, etc.

Origin host

The origin host determines which specific site on the origin server receives the request.

Protocol origin

The protocol used for origin fetch matches the client request protocol (HTTP or HTTPS).