Linode

Linode, LLC is an American cloud hosting provider that focuses on providing Linux-based virtual machines, cloud infrastructure, and managed services.

In 2003, at the time of its launch, Linode provided virtual private server (VPS) hosting. As of its last update, Linode serves customers from 196 countries and operates 11 data centers across the globe.

Linode was acquired by Akamai Technologies in February 2022 for $900 million.

History
Linode (a portmanteau of the words Linux and node) was founded in 2003 by Christopher Aker. Aker is a graduate of Full Sail University in Florida.

Linode focuses on providing Linux-based virtual servers to hobbyists, developers, and small and medium-sized businesses. The company moved its headquarters to Galloway, New Jersey in 2008. Linode relocated to the historic Corn Exchange National Bank building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2018.

Linode opened its first data centers in Fremont, California and Dallas, Texas in 2003. It subsequently opened its regions in Atlanta in 2007, Newark in 2008, London in 2009, Tokyo in 2011 and 2016, Frankfurt and Singapore in 2015, and Toronto, Mumbai, and Sydney in 2019.

Linode transitioned its virtualization platform from UML to Xen virtualization in March 2008 and then to KVM based virtualization in mid-2015. Over the years, Linode launched numerous supporting services and products in combination with its core Linux-based VPS product (typically referred to as "Linodes").

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 platform and security services".

Products and services
Linode's flagship products are used in a variety of cloud-hosting services. As of November 2019, Linode has five kinds of virtualization-based computing services geared towards specific customer requirements like high memory requirements, dedicated CPU resources, virtual machines with direct access to GPUs, or general purpose usage. Linode provides 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 engine service.

Compute

 * Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE) – Kubernetes containers as a service application.
 * GPU – On-demand cloud GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) compute configurations for parallel processing workloads such as machine learning, scientific computing, and video processing.
 * Dedicated CPU – Dedicated CPU instances run on their own physical CPU cores on Linode infrastructure, not shared by other tenants.
 * High Memory – High memory compute configurations to run memory-intensive applications.
 * Shared Linodes – A balanced compute configuration for a wide range of cloud applications.
 * Nanode – $5 per month entry-level compute package to run a fully functioning Linux distribution.

Storage

 * Linode Object Storage – Highly available and scalable S3-Compatible object storage to store unstructured data.
 * Linode Block Storage – Block storage to store data in volumes, or blocks, which act as individual hard disk drives (HDD).
 * Linode Backups – Automatic data backup service.

Networking

 * VLAN – Virtual local area network
 * DDoS Protection – Detection and mitigation of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) infrastructure attacks.
 * NodeBalancers – Software-defined, managed service for load balancing traffic to applications running on compute instances.
 * DNS Manager – Managed Domain Name System (DNS) service on Linode infrastructure.

Management tools

 * Cloud Manager – A user- and mobile-friendly interface to deploy and manage Linode virtual machines, configure networking, and control user accounts.
 * Linode API – API (Application Programming Interface) for programmatic access to the Linode platform.
 * Linode CLI – CLI (Command Line Interface) account access for managing Linode infrastructure.
 * Images – Create customer Linux images to simplify scaling.
 * StackScripts – Automatically customize Linode infrastructure deployments with StackScripts.
 * Monitoring – Analyze infrastructure performance, track transfer usage, and create custom alerts.

Professional services

 * Managed – An incident response service to help businesses reduce costly downtime.
 * Professional Services – Cloud consulting to help you architect your services, carry out site migrations, and deploy software.
 * Marketing – Email marketing to tens of thousands of clients /hour.

Regions and data centers
Linode operates 11 data centers worldwide, interconnected by a backbone network. As of Q2 2020, Linode is available in 11 regions worldwide. A region is a specific datacenter in a geographical location where users can deploy cloud resources. The company maintains internet exchange presence and peering arrangements with Internet service providers (ISPs) and other networks in each region.

Awards
Linode is a recipient of the Stevie Award for Sales and Customer Service. In 2019, Linode was awarded a Top Workplaces honor by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Linode’s headquarters building received the 2019 Grand Jury Award from the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. The building, built in 1902, is a Philadelphia landmark, named on Philadelphia’s registrar of historic places, and was once an MTV Real World house.

Security incidents
The accounts of eight Linode customers that held Bitcoin cryptocurrency were compromised in March 2012. Roughly 40,000 bitcoins were stolen.

Hack The Planet (HTP) accessed Linode's web servers in 2013. The group exploited a technical vulnerability in Adobe's ColdFusion application server. Linode said that HTP could not decrypt any financially sensitive information and reset all account passwords. Linode announced plans to introduce two-factor authentication for its services in May 2013.

Starting Christmas Day 2015 and continuing until January 10, 2016, Linode was hit by large and frequent DDoS 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.

Starting April 2023 and up to October 2023, Linode and Hetzner traffic for the largest Russian XMPP messaging service (jabber.ru) was intercepted through a Man-in-the-middle attack.