8 ms·

I'll be 100% honest, I didn't realize Dropbox was still on AWS. You figure at a certain scale it makes more sense to run your own solution.

rizjoj 9y ago
and Netflix?
- eikenberry 9y ago
  They have a completely different use case that benefits from being able to scale up and down quickly. I don't see them moving away from AWS anytime soon.
- kyledrake 9y ago
  They run BGP and do an enormous amount of IX peering. https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/2906 https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/2906 AWS doesn't even let you do BGP. If you want to use them for a CDN, you're monopolized into their network and their blend of ridiculously overpriced bandwidth. They might be using AWS for the canonical store of data, but the sanity of using "the cloud" goes out the window the second you need to ship a lot of traffic to the public internet.
  - pravinva 9y ago
    What are you on about? AWS practically requires BGP. Static routing is rarely the best choice when you set up DX. Netflix rolls its own CDNs because Cloudfront can't meet all their demands, yet.
  - jimktrains2 9y ago
    > heir blend of ridiculously overpriced bandwidth. For someone not at netflix's level, can you recommend somewhere with significantly cheaper bandwidth.
    - lsjdfkljdfwkwdf 9y ago
      At that traffic volume Netflix has more negotiation power with ISPs
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      Any colo or dedicated server provider.
      - jimktrains2 9y ago
        At a CoLo I have the rack, managment, and hardware overhead too, though? Also fewer PoP. EDIT: I guess I was talking about CloudFront specifically, not EC2. EC2 is pretty pricey.
        toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Price compare various CDNs. It's a commodity business. Fastly comes to mind, but we had quite a few outages with them at my last org.
    - thezilch 9y ago
      Pretty much anywhere.
    - corford 9y ago
      Pretty much anyone... Hetzner, Linode, Choopa
      - jimktrains2 9y ago
        For those I need to run a VPS, which also costs money and has fewer PoP and more mangment overhead. EDIT: I guess I was talking about CloudFront specifically, not EC2. EC2 is pretty pricey.
        corford 9y ago
        Sorry misunderstood. You could try here https://www.cdnperf.com/ https://www.cdnperf.com/ and compare egress prices/limits.
  - lsjdfkljdfwkwdf 9y ago
    Name a CDN (excluding DDoS mitigation) that offers useful BGP service to customers? Even some CDNs are not quite good at running BGP
  - _pmf_ 9y ago
    > you're monopolized into their network and their blend of ridiculously overpriced bandwidth. Wouldn't a customer the size of Netflix be granted more liberty in this regard?
- andyfleming 9y ago
  To be fair, Netflix only runs some of their infrastructure on AWS. Basically, if I understand correctly, their applications run on AWS and their delivery is through their own CDN built on top of various ISPs[1]. [1] https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-with-isps-around-the-globe-to-deliver-a-great-viewing-experience https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-...
  - yeukhon 9y ago
    Correct, but some is probably an understatment. They are pretty much run everyting on AWS except what you cited (e.g video processing and content delivery). Netflix is the biggest AWS user.
    - scurvy 9y ago
      Everything on AWS except their largest, most critical piece of infrastructure that needs to be the highest performing. That says it all right there.
      - erikbye 9y ago
        https://www.networkworld.com/article/3037428/cloud-computing/netflix-is-not-really-all-in-on-amazon-s-cloud.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/3037428/cloud-computing... And, > We rely on the cloud for all of our scalable computing and storage needs — our business logic, distributed databases and big data processing/analytics, recommendations, transcoding, and hundreds of other functions that make up the Netflix application. Video is delivered through Netflix Open Connect, our content delivery network that is distributed globally to efficiently deliver our bits to members’ devices. Source: https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/completing-the-netflix-cloud-migration https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/completing-the-net... Netflix still operates its own data centers and CDN to deliver video. This is not done on AWS.
      - yeukhon 9y ago
        Isn't that what I said above?
dandr01d 9y ago
This article isn't an announcement - it's a "Why we did it". They started transitioning years ago.
praneshp 9y ago
(Dropbox employee) I don't think this article is news. The editorialized title in HN is unfortunate and I wish a mod can change it. The article talks about the reasons Dropbox decided to move 500PB storage into our own data centers. Also like the article mentions, "They still use AWS for some workloads". Edit: Here is another HN submission of the same piece with the correct headline. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15257331 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15257331
xbmcuser 9y ago
Yeah and that's why it amazes me that Netflix uses Amazon a straight competitor that uses the money it makes from Netflix to compete with Amazon prime.
- mulmen 9y ago
  I hear this line of thinking a lot but I don't really buy it. You could just as easily say it's amazing that Amazon allows a competitor like Netflix to run on it's platform. The reality is that relationship is more complex than that.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
    Netflix is going to exist regardless of whether Amazon lets them run on AWS. Amazon letting them run on AWS is brilliant as they get a piece of Netflix's pie. So even if Netflix beats Amazon Prime, Amazon gets to dip into their pot via revenues from AWS. It's a great hedging of bets.
    - peanutgallery27 9y ago
      They're totally separate businesses. The people that treat Netflix like their customer aren't the same people making strategic decisions about Amazon Prime. Amazon is a ridiculously large company.
      - siculars 9y ago
        They are not totally separate when the P&L roll up on the same spreadsheet.
        user5994461 9y ago
        That depends on how the Amazon business is organized. It's possible that the P&L never join on the same spreadsheet.
  - ryacko 9y ago
bsenftner 9y ago
Please, how fucking stupid. Of course they moved as much as possible off AWS, and only use AWS for new and experimental services. The markup of cloud servers is immoral, and the brainwashing that cloud services are a value at all is a testimony to how many people simply do not do the math.
- StreamBright 9y ago
  I am not sure what you are talking about. They moved out the 500PB data storage because ______at that scale______ it is cheaper to run it on your own hardware. This implies few things like having engineers with skills that are really not easy to find for starting and a bunch of other challenges that you need to solve.

rizjoj 9y ago

and Netflix?

eikenberry 9y ago
They have a completely different use case that benefits from being able to scale up and down quickly. I don't see them moving away from AWS anytime soon.
kyledrake 9y ago
They run BGP and do an enormous amount of IX peering. https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/2906 https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/2906 AWS doesn't even let you do BGP. If you want to use them for a CDN, you're monopolized into their network and their blend of ridiculously overpriced bandwidth. They might be using AWS for the canonical store of data, but the sanity of using "the cloud" goes out the window the second you need to ship a lot of traffic to the public internet.
- pravinva 9y ago
  What are you on about? AWS practically requires BGP. Static routing is rarely the best choice when you set up DX. Netflix rolls its own CDNs because Cloudfront can't meet all their demands, yet.
- jimktrains2 9y ago
  > heir blend of ridiculously overpriced bandwidth. For someone not at netflix's level, can you recommend somewhere with significantly cheaper bandwidth.
  - lsjdfkljdfwkwdf 9y ago
    At that traffic volume Netflix has more negotiation power with ISPs
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Any colo or dedicated server provider.
    - jimktrains2 9y ago
      At a CoLo I have the rack, managment, and hardware overhead too, though? Also fewer PoP. EDIT: I guess I was talking about CloudFront specifically, not EC2. EC2 is pretty pricey.
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        Price compare various CDNs. It's a commodity business. Fastly comes to mind, but we had quite a few outages with them at my last org.
  - thezilch 9y ago
    Pretty much anywhere.
  - corford 9y ago
    Pretty much anyone... Hetzner, Linode, Choopa
    - jimktrains2 9y ago
      For those I need to run a VPS, which also costs money and has fewer PoP and more mangment overhead. EDIT: I guess I was talking about CloudFront specifically, not EC2. EC2 is pretty pricey.
      - corford 9y ago
        Sorry misunderstood. You could try here https://www.cdnperf.com/ https://www.cdnperf.com/ and compare egress prices/limits.
- lsjdfkljdfwkwdf 9y ago
  Name a CDN (excluding DDoS mitigation) that offers useful BGP service to customers? Even some CDNs are not quite good at running BGP
- _pmf_ 9y ago
  > you're monopolized into their network and their blend of ridiculously overpriced bandwidth. Wouldn't a customer the size of Netflix be granted more liberty in this regard?
andyfleming 9y ago
To be fair, Netflix only runs some of their infrastructure on AWS. Basically, if I understand correctly, their applications run on AWS and their delivery is through their own CDN built on top of various ISPs[1]. [1] https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-with-isps-around-the-globe-to-deliver-a-great-viewing-experience https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-...
- yeukhon 9y ago
  Correct, but some is probably an understatment. They are pretty much run everyting on AWS except what you cited (e.g video processing and content delivery). Netflix is the biggest AWS user.
  - scurvy 9y ago
    Everything on AWS except their largest, most critical piece of infrastructure that needs to be the highest performing. That says it all right there.
    - erikbye 9y ago
      https://www.networkworld.com/article/3037428/cloud-computing/netflix-is-not-really-all-in-on-amazon-s-cloud.html https://www.networkworld.com/article/3037428/cloud-computing... And, > We rely on the cloud for all of our scalable computing and storage needs — our business logic, distributed databases and big data processing/analytics, recommendations, transcoding, and hundreds of other functions that make up the Netflix application. Video is delivered through Netflix Open Connect, our content delivery network that is distributed globally to efficiently deliver our bits to members’ devices. Source: https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/completing-the-netflix-cloud-migration https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/completing-the-net... Netflix still operates its own data centers and CDN to deliver video. This is not done on AWS.
    - yeukhon 9y ago
      Isn't that what I said above?

dandr01d 9y ago

This article isn't an announcement - it's a "Why we did it". They started transitioning years ago.

praneshp 9y ago

(Dropbox employee) I don't think this article is news. The editorialized title in HN is unfortunate and I wish a mod can change it. The article talks about the reasons Dropbox decided to move 500PB storage into our own data centers. Also like the article mentions, "They still use AWS for some workloads". Edit: Here is another HN submission of the same piece with the correct headline. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15257331 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15257331

xbmcuser 9y ago

Yeah and that's why it amazes me that Netflix uses Amazon a straight competitor that uses the money it makes from Netflix to compete with Amazon prime.

mulmen 9y ago
I hear this line of thinking a lot but I don't really buy it. You could just as easily say it's amazing that Amazon allows a competitor like Netflix to run on it's platform. The reality is that relationship is more complex than that.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  Netflix is going to exist regardless of whether Amazon lets them run on AWS. Amazon letting them run on AWS is brilliant as they get a piece of Netflix's pie. So even if Netflix beats Amazon Prime, Amazon gets to dip into their pot via revenues from AWS. It's a great hedging of bets.
  - peanutgallery27 9y ago
    They're totally separate businesses. The people that treat Netflix like their customer aren't the same people making strategic decisions about Amazon Prime. Amazon is a ridiculously large company.
    - siculars 9y ago
      They are not totally separate when the P&L roll up on the same spreadsheet.
      - user5994461 9y ago
        That depends on how the Amazon business is organized. It's possible that the P&L never join on the same spreadsheet.
- ryacko 9y ago

bsenftner 9y ago

Please, how fucking stupid. Of course they moved as much as possible off AWS, and only use AWS for new and experimental services. The markup of cloud servers is immoral, and the brainwashing that cloud services are a value at all is a testimony to how many people simply do not do the math.

StreamBright 9y ago
I am not sure what you are talking about. They moved out the 500PB data storage because ______at that scale______ it is cheaper to run it on your own hardware. This implies few things like having engineers with skills that are really not easy to find for starting and a bunch of other challenges that you need to solve.