Preparing for Disruption with Good IT

by Mani Sundaram on March 20, 2020

As our colleagues, customers, and friends continue to adapt to the rapidly changing situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are facing a global challenge that is unprecedented in the age of technology. The most important thing during this time is the health and safety of our communities.

In order to protect their employees and those close to them, more and more companies are increasing levels of remote work, with many workforces transitioning to fully remote for the foreseeable future.

With a highly mobile workforce spread across the globe, all Akamai employees have laptops and regularly host remote meetings to connect with colleagues in other offices. This put our teams in a good position to weather this from a technology standpoint (handling isolation with hyper kids and pets is another matter).

In order to further gauge how our various tools, technology, and support infrastructure would handle the change to our workflow, we conducted a Global Remote Workday test on Friday, March 13. On this day, we requested all our employees (with a few strategic exceptions) to work remotely so that we could stress test our systems.

Our Enterprise Application Access product treats all of our offices as general Internet hotspots that always require authorization to access, regardless of location. This means we have essentially been load-testing this scenario every day at Akamai, so we were hopeful it would be just another day (not) at the office.

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EAA Remote Connectivity from Before and After 3/13/2020 Global Remote Workday

We were pleased to see that our system continued to perform with no disruptions! EAA proved to be adaptable and reliable, even during a global crisis.

Another critical test was to see how an all-remote workforce would interact with our IT Solution Center team. With a network of in-person support centers around the world, this team is an important touchpoint for all of Akamai, and in many ways serves as the friendly face of IT. On that Friday, we had zero in-person visits to our Solution Centers, which was great proof that the vast majority of our workforce took the directive to work remotely.

On the other hand, the total number of remote Solution Center tickets increased significantly (up 220+ from our March 9 baseline), showing we could still provide valuable support, from the safety of our homes. We are grateful for our highly skilled IT teams for supporting us during this transition.

Over the past week, we’ve also seen an increase in total calls. This was a good sign: proof that our employees are adapting to this “new normal” and remaining productive. It was also a reminder of the importance of having scalable collaboration tools.

Total Calls from Before and After 3/13/2020 Global Remote Workday

Having flexible infrastructure in place is a good way for companies to prepare for disruptive events. At Akamai, this means low impact to both employees and customers. Learn more about our Business Continuity Assistance Program .

With a global disruption of this scale, there will be difficulties for all organizations, but solid IT infrastructure and a good plan of attack can help companies adapt to major events, while still prioritizing employee safety and customer needs. Your Akamai team is ready to help you navigate this challenge. If you’re not yet a customer, you can contact us.

As we continue to do our best during this difficult time, my thoughts are with our global community and all who have been affected. Wishing you, your families, and your teams good health.