3165280 - Use of Akamai in SAP SuccessFactors Learning

SAP SuccessFactors has rolled out Akamai Content Delivery Network (CDN) across SAP SuccessFactors datacenters.

This document provides information about the Akamai Service and its benefits.

SAP SuccessFactors Learning

Description:

SAP SuccessFactors selectively utilizes a Content Delivery Network (CDN) across its portfolio of services. Using a CDN can lower latency, improve response time, and allows SAP SuccessFactors to offer high capacity and scalability to customers. 

SAP SuccessFactors primary partner for CDN services is Akamai, a leading provider of global Caching Services with more than 200K caching servers in over 75 countries spanning the most important networks within the internet and is a single network hop away from 90% of global Internet users. 

Akamai is automatically enabled to provide faster access to both SAP SuccessFactors Learning along with content that is stored on the iContent SFTP. The Akamai Content Delivery Network (ACDN) tool stores and caches data across multiple servers around the world. 

Why is Akamai used?

Akamai is used to provide a better user experience. 

Example: If the content server is in Sydney and if the users are accessing the content in New York, there would be a tremendous delay in the time taken to render all the contents from Sydney servers to the user's location. With Akamai, the contents are cached in multiple locations and would be rendered to the users from the closest location. The content may be cached in the servers located in Texas and delivered from Texas to New York reducing the time taken to load. 

Akamai can greatly improve response times for end users when they are physically located far from our hosting data center by caching static content on over 200,000 edge servers around the globe. 

Can I place Akamai IP on the Allow-list?

As Akamai has over 200,000 servers over the globe, the IP addresses cannot be easily placed on the allow-list of your organization. Please use the domain of the URL such as plateau.com, lms.sapsf.com, lms.sapf.eu, lms.sapsf.cn in your allow-lists.

Please follow the following steps to identify if IP allow-list is enabled on your corporate network:

• Contact your Corporate IT team to check the use of IP allow-listing feature, to allow access to SAP SuccessFactors application.
• To isolate the connectivity issue further, please follow the steps mentioned in the guide: Verify Akamai Allow Listing with a Browser. 

What is the Akamai caching period, and can we clear it if needed?

It can take around one week to update the Akamai cache globally, so we do not recommend replacing the course contents directly in the SFTP and recommend using the Content Import tool in the Learning Admin page to replace the course contents. If you see varying course pages (like few users see the old course contents and others get the latest content), then raise a support case with us requesting to purge/refresh Akamai cache. 

What is the maximum file size that Akamai can cache?

Akamai can cache file sizes that are 1800 MB (~1.8 GB). This is not for the file but individual files. If a single mp4 video file that is over this threshold is uploaded, it will fail to replicate through the Akamai system.  This does not work when launching in SAP SuccessFactors Learning. No workaround can be used in tools of the Learning system. Please make the changes at the content level such as rendering the video in a smaller encoding/resolution, breaking the video into several files, or recreating the content. 

How secure is the data cached by Akamai?

The ACDN caches static content such as video, images, etc. Only static content is ever stored on the Akamai Edge platform; never data or PII. The network also employs high encryption and TLS SSL to meet our secure network traffic standards. Akamai is GDPR compliant.

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SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite all versions ; SAP SuccessFactors Learning all versions