American content delivery network and security provider Akamai will build a Prolexic data scrubbing centre in Auckland, along with a cloud computing facility, the company said.
The Prolexic scrubbing centre can filter out harmful traffic, including that generated by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
It will be be designed with the new software defined Prolexic architecture that minimise dependency on third-party hardware, Akamai said.
Routed 3.0 zoning will be supported, and a new segmentation feature will maximise system availability, with every customer served by a different subset of servers that offer an increase in mitigation capacity.
Akamai said it saw more than a fifth increase in the volume off DDoS attacks, targeting the financial services sector last year.
Co-founder and Akamai chief executive Dr Tom Leighton said DDoS attacks have been escalating globally in recent years, with New Zealand's critical infrastructure has witnessed multiple campaigns against it particularly over the past two years.
"The Akamai Prolexic scrubbing centre will defend our global and New Zealand customers from the largest, multi-terabit attacks," he added.
"Akamai is committed to building scrubbing centres that enhance our global presence and solidify our attack mitigation posture,” said Dr Leighton.
As part of Akamai's Connect Cloud programme, the provider is setting up an enterprise-scale core cloud computing facility in Auckland.
Connected Cloud will see four new cloud computing facilities built in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region, connected to Akamai's distributed global network.
The Auckland facility will serve as a template for additional Akamai sites around the world, and contain computing services bought from hosting provider Linode.
