Akamai Technologies Inc., a company that provides a distributed computing platform for global Internet content and application delivery, recently launched a free new Web service which provides a "view into the real-time wellbeing of the Internet", sort of a weather report on global traffic, virus outbreaks, malicious attacks and activity spikes in general.
Akamai operates the world's largest distributed computing platform for accelerating online content and applications for today's growing demand of rich media applications, particularly online video, claiming to deliver as much as 15 to 20 percent of Internet traffic on any given day.
"It's easy to take for granted that the Internet will always be on, and always working," said Tom Leighton, co-founder and chief scientist of Akamai. "Reality shows us that there are many factors, on any given day, degrading the Internet's performance. Some are malicious, and some are the result of the incredible amount of content being requested at any one time. Akamai is in a unique position to monitor the Internet in real-time, identifying where and when the Internet is being taxed. The services we provide, leveraging this data, are geared toward helping our customers overcome the challenges of the Internet so they can effectively conduct business online."
The feature was originally developed as a tool for Akamai's customers, but was afterwards released for the general public. It sure looks impressive and very interesting; you can follow the link to view how the Internet is performing at this moment.