Downtime hurts. A single regional outage, a congested network or simply a server that runs out of breath can cause havoc all over the world. This frustrates the user, and costs companies money. Today, users want applications to be resilient, fast and snappy, irrespective of where they log in from. However, it is not so simple to keep things smooth especially when the applications are dispersed across different regions and clouds. Companies require a method whereby when one location is knocked out, traffic will be redirected to another location--without engineers having to rush to work in the middle of the night. That’s where tools like Akamai Global Traffic Management (GTM) steps in. GTM acts like a traffic cop on the internet highway, sending users to the closest and healthiest backend. It keeps checking if endpoints are alive, reroutes traffic when stuff breaks, and balances loads across regions. Whether you’re in one cloud, juggling multiple clouds, or running a hybrid setup, GTM makes sure apps stay fast and available. Akamai Global Traffic Management By mixing DNS-based routing, health checks, failover rules, and smart traffic balancing, GTM takes the manual mess out of multi-region load balancing. The payoff? Fewer outages, lower lag, and happier users—no matter where they connect from. What is Akamai GTM ? Akamai Global Traffic Management (GTM) is a DNS-based, cloud-native global server load balancing solution. It enhances the application reliability by pointing user to the appropriate data center based on the best Internet route. It offers several key benefits for organizations needing to route traffic across multiple cloud or on-premises environments. global server load balancing across multiple cloud or on-premises environments Why Akamai GTM? Akamai GTM offers several advantages over other load balancing solutions, primarily due to its global reach, intelligent routing, and features like improved availability, dynamic traffic distribution etc Use Case Scenarios Akamai GTM can reportedly be integrated into quite a number of systems but its really useful in certain scenarios like: Multi-Region Deployments Multi-Region Deployments In case your application is in multiple regions (e.g. between GCP us-west1 and us-central1), GTM sends the users to the nearest healthy location. The system has the capability of switching one region to another region in case of breakdown in one region- traffic. GCP Multi-Cloud Architectures Multi-Cloud Architectures Many companies distribute workload across cloud platforms like Google cloud, AWS, and Azure. GTM gives a single means of balancing traffic across all of them, removing vendor lock-in and increasing reliability. Google cloud Disaster Recovery (DR) Disaster Recovery (DR) Under the active-passive failover, one region continues to handle traffic and another is on standby. Should the primary region fail, GTM automatically switches traffic to the backup to ensure that downtime is minimal. active-passive failover SaaS and Global Platforms SaaS and Global Platforms Apps that target users in multiple continents, such as SaaS tools or heavy content platforms, will also be able to take advantage of GTM by using geo-routing. It directs people to the nearest data centre to reduce latency. A/B Testing and Stepped Rollouts A/B Testing and Stepped Rollouts Using weighted routing, you will be able to route a small portion of traffic to a feature or environment. This implies safer rollouts and controlled experiments, and fewer surprises when things go live. GTM Configurations to consider for Setting Up Load Balancing Rules Liveness Tests Akamai GTM (Global Traffic Management) uses liveness tests to monitor the health of each data center associated with a GTM property. These tests are performed by Akamai Web Agents, which periodically check if data centers are “alive” by running pre-configured tests such as HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, or ICMP (ping) against the targets. The results of these tests determine the liveness score for each data center; if a data center fails the test, GTM can automatically reroute traffic to healthy locations. Akamai GTM Agents ICMP Failover and Fallback Delay Each liveness test has a configurable timeout value. If the tests do not receive a response within this timeout, it is considered failure for that interval. Repeated timeouts causes the GTM to mark data center as down and it re-routes the traffic according to the Traffic Distribution settings. GTM can be configured with failover and fallback delays to prevent rapid flapping. These properties allow you to control how quickly GTM acts on liveness test results and how long it waits before restoring traffic after a recovery. Property Type Depending upon your application requirement, you can configure GTM to distribute traffic among your Google ALBs using one or more of the following methods: Weighted round robin: Assign weights to each backend application instance to control traffic split.Geographic routing: Route users to the nearest backend application instance based on their location.Failover: Enable health checks so GTM can detect endpoint availability in real time so that GTM can automatically reroute traffic if a backend application becomes unhealthy. Weighted round robin: Assign weights to each backend application instance to control traffic split. Geographic routing: Route users to the nearest backend application instance based on their location. Failover: Enable health checks so GTM can detect endpoint availability in real time so that GTM can automatically reroute traffic if a backend application becomes unhealthy. Create GTM Domain Pre-requisites Deploy your application in the required regions.Ensure each application instance has a public IP configured. These IPs will be the targets for GTM routing.Below is a step-by-step guide on how to configure Akamai GTM to distribute traffic across different instances of an application. For this example, we will consider the application is hosted in GCP us-west1 and us-central1 locations.Step-by-Step instructionsLog in to Akamai Control Center.Go to ☰ > DNS SOLUTIONS > Global Traffic Management. The Traffic Management Domains page opens.                                                               GTM in Akamai Control CenterClick Add New Domain.Select the contract from the menu for the domain. This field is visible if you have at least one contract.Fill in the Domain Name field that ends in .akadns.net. The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) field warns you if the domain name format is invalid.Enter this value in the text field e.g. testEnter a data center name and location e.g. us-west1 (The Latitude and Longitude fields should auto-populateAdding Data Center detailsClick "Add Another Data Center"Enter a data center name and location e.g. gcp-us-central1. Add Data Center information.Add Email Notification List and other information as applicable. Click Save. The New Property-Basic Info page appears. Enter the property name: testgtm-prop Select Property Type from the list. I am selecting “Weighted Random Load Balancing“ for this example. Enter information as below:Comments: GTM domain used to route traffic to backend.DNS TTL: (e.g. 60 seconds)IP Type: IPv4Leave Minimum Live Percentage blank.Use defaults for any other fields.Click Add To Change List & Next. The Traffic Targets page opens.Select the gcp-us-west1 datacenter from the drop-down menu.Servers: Enter the DNS record (A value) of the application (us-west1)Handout CNAME: Enter the DNS record (A value) of the application (us-west1)Click Add New TargetSelect the gcp-us-central1 datacenter from the drop-down menu and follow steps done for us-west1 gcp LBClick Set as Primary for the data center you want to make primary traffic target. You can also set Goal %age for the traffic you want to be routed to each Data CentersClick Add To Change List & Next. Review changes in the next few screens.Click Review Change List. The Change List Detail dialog opens.Review the Change List Detail dialog changes, validate them, add a required comment, and click Activate Domain to save them.Test and Monitor. We can use Akamai’s reporting and monitoring tools to observe traffic flow and verify correct routing. Deploy your application in the required regions. Ensure each application instance has a public IP configured. These IPs will be the targets for GTM routing. targets Below is a step-by-step guide on how to configure Akamai GTM to distribute traffic across different instances of an application. For this example, we will consider the application is hosted in GCP us-west1 and us-central1 locations. Step-by-Step instructions Log in to Akamai Control Center. Go to ☰ > DNS SOLUTIONS > Global Traffic Management. The Traffic Management Domains page opens.                                                               GTM in Akamai Control Center DNS SOLUTIONS Global Traffic Management Traffic Management Domains Click Add New Domain. Add New Domain Select the contract from the menu for the domain. This field is visible if you have at least one contract. Fill in the Domain Name field that ends in .akadns.net. The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) field warns you if the domain name format is invalid. Domain Name Enter this value in the text field e.g. test test Enter a data center name and location e.g. us-west1 (The Latitude and Longitude fields should auto-populate Adding Data Center details Click "Add Another Data Center" Enter a data center name and location e.g. gcp-us-central1. Add Data Center information. Add Email Notification List and other information as applicable. Click Save. The New Property-Basic Info page appears. Save New Property-Basic Info Enter the property name: testgtm-prop testgtm-prop Select Property Type from the list. I am selecting “Weighted Random Load Balancing“ for this example. Property Type Enter information as below: Comments: GTM domain used to route traffic to backend. GTM domain used to route traffic to backend. DNS TTL: (e.g. 60 seconds) (e.g. 60 seconds) IP Type: IPv4 IPv4 Leave Minimum Live Percentage blank. Minimum Live Percentage Use defaults for any other fields. Click Add To Change List & Next. The Traffic Targets page opens. Add To Change List & Next Select the gcp-us-west1 datacenter from the drop-down menu. gcp-us-west1 Servers: Enter the DNS record (A value) of the application (us-west1) Handout CNAME: Enter the DNS record (A value) of the application (us-west1) Click Add New Target Add New Target Select the gcp-us-central1 datacenter from the drop-down menu and follow steps done for us-west1 gcp LB gcp-us-central1 Click Set as Primary for the data center you want to make primary traffic target. You can also set Goal %age for the traffic you want to be routed to each Data Centers Set as Primary Click Add To Change List & Next. Review changes in the next few screens. Add To Change List & Next Click Review Change List. The Change List Detail dialog opens. Review Change List Review the Change List Detail dialog changes, validate them, add a required comment, and click Activate Domain to save them. Activate Domain Test and Monitor. We can use Akamai’s reporting and monitoring tools to observe traffic flow and verify correct routing. Best Practices for Using Akamai GTM Want GTM to work smooth? Here’s a few things worth keeping in mind: Keep TTLs Low for Quick Failover Keep TTLs Low for Quick Failover Set DNS Time-to-Live around 30–60 seconds. That way, when something breaks, clients pick up the change fast. Test Liveness Checks Beforehand Test Liveness Checks Beforehand Try your HTTP/TCP/ICMP probes in staging first. A bad config could mark healthy servers as dead and reroute traffic for no reason. Add Failover and Fallback Delays Add Failover and Fallback Delays Don’t let traffic bounce back and forth (flapping). Small delays keep things stable while still recovering quick. Use Weighted Routing for Safer Rollouts Use Weighted Routing for Safer Rollouts Send just a little traffic to new regions, services, or releases. If things break, the damage stays small. Leverage Geo Routing for Speed Leverage Geo Routing for Speed For apps where lag hurts (like SaaS or gaming), route users to the closest server. Makes them feel your app is faster. Keep Monitoring On Keep Monitoring On Hook Akamai’s reports with tools like Google Cloud Monitoring or AWS CloudWatch. Watching traffic and failovers in real time helps you tune GTM better. Conclusion Global apps need to stay online, run fast, and survive outages. But old-school load balancers usually stick to one region or cloud. That leaves holes in reliability and the user experience. That’s where global traffic management comes in. By using DNS routing, health checks, and smart failover, it keeps apps running across regions, clouds, and even hybrid setups. The benefits are clear. Want disaster recovery? Multi-cloud freedom? Or just better speed for users around the world? Global load balancing covers it. Features like liveness tests, weighted routing, and geo-based traffic help apps stay online and responsive even when something breaks. The main point: don’t wait until a crash forces you to care. Build resilience early. Put global traffic management in place so your apps match both your tech and business needs. That means fewer outages, smoother user experience, and confidence that you can grow worldwide.

This story contains new, firsthand information uncovered by the writer.

Zero Downtime with Akamai GTM: Multi-Region Load Balancing Made Simple

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