What technology underpins Akamai's content delivery services?

Akamai's content delivery services are fundamentally built on a global network of servers. This infrastructure allows Akamai to distribute content efficiently by caching data at geographically diverse locations closer to the end users. By utilizing a vast network of edge servers, Akamai can reduce latency and improve load times for users accessing content from various parts of the world.

This decentralized approach enables the company to handle large volumes of traffic and provide high availability and reliability. Instead of relying on a single centralized server, which could create bottlenecks and single points of failure, Akamai's network disperses the load across multiple servers, enhancing performance and ensuring seamless delivery of content.

The other options, while they represent components of internet infrastructure or security solutions, do not capture the core of what enables Akamai's content delivery capabilities. A database system for content storage is essential for managing content but does not define how that content is delivered. Similarly, a web application firewall protects applications but is not the underlying technology for content delivery.