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Arkena has joined the Akamai (News - Alert) NetAlliance Program in order to extend the reach and influence of its on-demand media management service.

Arkena operates in Europe as a primary provider of OTT video services such as storage and rights management. Clients can upload their videos to the Arkena network for viewing at a later time on any device. Companies can share their videos with potential customers or save them for a shareholder meeting; they can even control who is allowed to access specific content so the rights of their videos are preserved as long as they sit in the cloud.

To date, Arkena has reached more than 1,500 business clients, but it wants more. It knows it can influence more broadcasters, telecommunications companies, and video-on-demand companies (think: Netflix) and can give them more control over the content they own. This is where Akamai enters the picture. Akamai reaches across the globe with its content delivery network, a portal for its own clients to offer their software, services, or data (such as video) to end users in any location.

TMC (News - Alert) has noted the influence of Akamai’s content network, stating that its new virtualized content delivery system shows the power of virtualization in this industry. Akamai’s platform, TMC said, makes a good fit for content that, on its own, lasts only short time but, in aggregate, could serve millions of video hours at once. Pay-per-view specials such as a headline fighting match make a good example here.

That type of content would be easy enough for businesses to deliver from their own servers if only a few people accessed it at any one time. When millions of viewers flood the server, though, crashes can occur. Akamai has built its content delivery network to withstand the demands of multiple viewers; it can cater to the needs of the Arkena’s among us that want to provide services smoothly to a large group of people across the globe.