Linode () is an American cloud hosting provider that focused on providing

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

-based

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulator, emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve ...

s and cloud infrastructure. From the time of its launch in 2003, Linode provided

virtual private server A virtual private server (VPS) or virtual dedicated server (VDS) is a virtual machine sold as a service by an Internet hosting company. A virtual private server runs its own copy of an operating system (OS), and customers may have superuser- ...

(VPS) hosting. Linode was acquired by

Akamai Technologies Akamai Technologies, Inc. is an American company specialized in content delivery networkJ. Dilley, B. Maggs, J. Parikh, H. Prokop, R. Sitaraman, and B. Weihl. (CDN), cybersecurity, DDoS mitigation, and cloud services. It is headquartered in ...

in February 2022 for $900 million.

History

Linode (a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of the words Linux and

node In general, a node is a localized swelling (a "knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex). Node may refer to: In mathematics * Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph *Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, lines ...

) was founded in 2003 by Christopher Aker. Aker is a graduate of

Full Sail University Full Sail University is a Private university, private For-profit higher education in the United States, for-profit university in Winter Park, Florida. It was formerly a recording studio in Ohio named Full Sail Productions and Full Sail Center f ...

in Florida. The company moved its headquarters to Galloway, New Jersey in 2008. Linode relocated to the historic Corn Exchange National Bank building in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

in 2018. On February 15, 2022, Akamai Technologies announced its intent to acquire Linode for $900 million. Akamai's founder and CEO Tom Leighton stated that it sought to "combine Linode's developer-friendly cloud computing capabilities with Akamai’s market-leading

edge Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...

platform and security services".

Products and services

As of November 2019, Linode provided several kinds of virtualization-based computing services with options to meet specific customer needs, such as high memory requirements, dedicated CPU resources,

s with direct access to

GPUs A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

. Linode provided services in network-based storage and backup servers. In September 2013, Linode launched Longview, a system performance monitoring package for Linux that allows users to view performance metrics of their instances from the Linode Cloud Manager. In late October 2019, Linode launched its S3-Compatible Object Storage service to enable customers to store large, unstructured data. On November 11, 2019, at CNCF KubeCon, Linode announced the availability of its managed

Kubernetes Kubernetes (), also known as K8s is an open-source software, open-source OS-level virtualization, container orchestration (computing), orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Originally designed by Googl ...

engine service.

Security incidents

In 2012, the accounts of eight Linode customers were compromised, stealing roughly 40,000 bitcoins. In 2013, hacking group Hack The Planet (HTP) accessed Linode's web servers by exploiting a technical vulnerability in Adobe's

ColdFusion Adobe ColdFusion is a commercial rapid web-application development computing platform created by J. J. Allaire in 1995. (The programming language used with that platform is also commonly called ColdFusion, though is more accurately known as CF ...

application server An application server is a server that hosts applications or software that delivers a business application through a communication protocol. For a typical web application, the application server sits behind the web servers. An application ser ...

. Linode said that HTP could not decrypt any financially sensitive information and reset all account passwords. Linode announced plans to introduce

two-factor authentication Multi-factor authentication (MFA; two-factor authentication, or 2FA) is an electronic authentication method in which a user is granted access to a website or Application software, application only after successfully presenting two or more distin ...

for its services in May 2013. Starting Christmas Day 2015 and continuing until January 10, 2016, Linode was hit by large and frequent

DDoS In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyberattack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host co ...

attacks, which were being caused by a "bad actor" purchasing large amounts of botnet capacity in an attempt to significantly damage Linode's business. Linode was the victim of another severe DDoS attack over the 2016 Labor Day weekend.

References

{{Reflist Cloud infrastructure Cloud computing providers Web services Companies based in Philadelphia Computer companies established in 2003 Internet hosting 2022 mergers and acquisitions 2003 establishments in California American companies established in 2003 American companies disestablished in 2022 Computer companies disestablished in 2022 2022 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Defunct companies based in Pennsylvania