The document discusses how The Washington Post is using Akamai APIs to grow its Arc Publishing platform. It launched over 1000 sites using Arc in less than 90 days. It moved from using the Akamai CLI to using APIs to better integrate with its DevOps workflows. This allows them to manage configurations at scale and deploy changes across many sites. It provides demos of using the Property Management API to onboard new sites and add hostnames programmatically. Lessons learned include building and debugging systems early and being aware of custom behaviors.

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How The Washington Post
is Using Akamai APIs to Grow
Arc Publishing
FEATURING
Akamai-as-Code
with The
Washington Post

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Agenda
Introduction to Arc Publishing1
Demos3
Q&A4
Interactive Quiz5
Akamai-as-Code2

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Speakers
Yair Greenbaum
Engagement Manager
Akamai Technologies
Ian Baker
Technical Director
The Washington Post

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More than
sites using
1000
Arc
Launch in
less than
90
days
Headless
built for
world-class
storytellers
CMS

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Arc by the Numbers
Properties
1100
Configurations
1004
CP Codes
939
Akamai Products Support Arc Publishing
Image and Video
Manager
SecurityCloudlets

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Managing Several Configs at Once
How we scaled our business without increasing the workload.
We launch
3-5 new
customers
every week
We launch 100+
sites per month
We make
changes to
100+ configs
daily

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The Move From CLI to API
Using the CLI required parsing bash and CLI output.
Properties as JSON
configurations
Edit or
create files
Compare with
current version
Email
activation
Slack activation
and errors
Email
activation
Update
Slack update
and errors
Activate in
staging
Activate in
production
APPROVEAPPROVE

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The Move From CLI to API
We wanted to:
1. Add controls for changes in rules.json
2. Deploy bulk activation across the site and entire org
3. Audit events easily
4. Integrate unit tests into the staging network
5. Enable centralized access to Akamai
6. Interact easily with our pipeline (ie. Slack Integration)
APIs are easier to execute.

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A Property
Manager
Config
Template
Customer
specific

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Sample
JSON
config

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Akamai-as-Code

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Akamai for DevOps
Enabling users to work inside
their DevOps environments,
at their speed, at their scale.

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DevOps Simplifies Developer Workflows
What is DevOps?
DevOps brings development and
operations together, automating the
software delivery pipeline.
Why DevOps?
DevOps empower engineers to
ship code at a higher velocity to better
serve customers and give businesses
a competitive edge.

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A typical DevOps pipeline

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Leveraging Akamai APIs
Manage Akamai with 100+ open APIs.
• Property Management (PAPI)
• Fast Purge
• Global Traffic Management
• Edge DNS
• Certification Provisioning
• Cloudlets
DEV
DEV DEV
DEV
Learn more: developer.akamai.com/api/

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How APIs fit into our workflow

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Demos

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Onboarding a new
site with the Property
Management API (PAPI)
1. Create a new property manager
2. Create an SSL Certificate with CPS
3. Activate
DEMOS

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Create a new
Property Manager
1. Creating a new property
2. Creating a CP code
3. Updating the new property
4. Activating
DEMO
Endpoints:
● Create Property -
/papi/v1/properties{?contractId,groupId}
● Create CP Code -
/papi/v1/cpcodes{?contractId,groupId}
● Update Rule Tree -
/papi/v1/properties/{propertyId}/versions/
{propertyVersion}/rules{?contractId,
groupId,validateRules,validateMode,dryRun}
● Add Hostnames (INTERNAL) -
/papi/v1/properties/{propertyId}/versions/
{propertyVersion}/hostnames{?contractId,
groupId,validateHostnames}
● Activate -
/papi/v1/bulk/activations{?contractId,
groupId}

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Adding Your Hostames
1. Add hostname
2. Create CNAME
3. Add certificate to hostname
4. Validate
DEMO
PAPI, DNS, CPS Endpoints:
● Add Hostnames -
/papi/v1/properties/{propertyId}/versions/{propertyVer
sion}/hostnames{?contractId,groupId,validateHostnames}
● Activate -
/papi/v1/bulk/activations{?contractId,groupId}
● Create Fast-DNS Hostnames
/config-dns/v2/zones/{}/names/{}/types/AKAMAICDN
● Create Enrollment
/cps/v2/enrollments?contractId={}
● Update Enrollment
{}/cps/v2/enrollments/{}
● Get Enrollment Change
{}/cps/v2/enrollments/{}/changes/{}
● Get Challenges
{}/cps/v2/enrollments/{}/changes/{}/input/info/lets-en
crypt-challenges
● Wait for client validation
● Complete

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Endpoints:
● Activate -
/papi/v1/bulk/activations{?contractId,
groupId}
Activate Bulk Changes
● Activating properties
● Rollback versions
● Alerts
DEMO

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What to do
when stuff fails
Debugging 101
1
2
Reproduce the error using Python,
HTTPie, or Postman
Check the API response headers
3 Lookup the API documentation to ensure
you are using right syntax/format
4 Check support resources
(Knowledge base, open support ticket,
or ask your Akamai go-to person if you
have one)

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Lessons Learned
Tips and Tricks for
working with Akamai
1
2
Don’t expect short term execution
Building systems requires
more than a single thread
3 Build and debug early
4 We can do the work from
anywhere using the slack bot
5 Beware of custom behaviors

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Let’s recap
Webinar ResourcesSummary Visit Arc Publishing
arcpublishing.com

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Useful Links
● developer.akamai.com
● youtube.com/AkamaiDeveloper
● developer.akamai.com/akamai-code-washington-post
● developer.akamai.com/blog/washington-post-akamai-as-code