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Could anyone expand on why it makes sense for Netflix to use AWS so extensively?

Nextgrid 4y ago
The bulk of the media is served from appliances they give out to ISPs, so their AWS costs might be reasonable. It's also a huge company and a massive distributed system, so moving that off from AWS is an insane amount of effort and there might be legitimate benefits from AWS' management and autoscaling layer that aren't as valuable for 37Signals which runs simpler, monolithic systems.
- klelatti 4y ago
  Thanks - I'm guessing that they get a great deal from AWS too.
- mch82 4y ago
  Additionally, Netflix falls into one category of website DHH writes about: unpredictable, significant bursts of traffic. When they publish Tiger King during the pandemic there’s a spike in streaming no one could have predicted. When people finish the show it goes away. The arrival time of the next breakout show is likely uncertain, even if it can be modeled using a statistical distribution.
  - wlll 4y ago
    I worked at Basecamp/37signals up until 2015. We had peaks and troughs, with as you might predict traffic ramping at ET morning, and tailing off PT afternoon/evening. We had some European traffic, but it was substantially less than the US. It still cost /far/ less to buy/rack/power etc. our servers 100% of the time than it would have done to use the cloud and scale up and down with demand. There is definitely a situation when bursty requirements will make cloud the more obvious answer, but given the near order of magnitude cost increase for cloud it's not as clear cut as just seeing a wave on a graph :)
bigiain 4y ago
Because Netflix are big enough that they don’t pay the same AWS prices and you and I.
betaby 4y ago
Video is NOT served from AWS at all. They self host in fact. See https://papers.freebsd.org/2021/eurobsdcon/gallatin-netflix-freebsd-400gbps/ https://papers.freebsd.org/2021/eurobsdcon/gallatin-netflix-...
ksec 4y ago
1. Content are served from their own Appliance. 2. Content Encoding are not done at a regular interval. And most of their work on ML and other quality requirements does not require fixed interval either. i.e They are schedule to work in Spot when AWS price are at its lowest. 3. Netflix get huge discount anyway.

The bulk of the media is served from appliances they give out to ISPs, so their AWS costs might be reasonable. It's also a huge company and a massive distributed system, so moving that off from AWS is an insane amount of effort and there might be legitimate benefits from AWS' management and autoscaling layer that aren't as valuable for 37Signals which runs simpler, monolithic systems.

klelatti 4y ago
Thanks - I'm guessing that they get a great deal from AWS too.
mch82 4y ago
Additionally, Netflix falls into one category of website DHH writes about: unpredictable, significant bursts of traffic. When they publish Tiger King during the pandemic there’s a spike in streaming no one could have predicted. When people finish the show it goes away. The arrival time of the next breakout show is likely uncertain, even if it can be modeled using a statistical distribution.
- wlll 4y ago
  I worked at Basecamp/37signals up until 2015. We had peaks and troughs, with as you might predict traffic ramping at ET morning, and tailing off PT afternoon/evening. We had some European traffic, but it was substantially less than the US. It still cost /far/ less to buy/rack/power etc. our servers 100% of the time than it would have done to use the cloud and scale up and down with demand. There is definitely a situation when bursty requirements will make cloud the more obvious answer, but given the near order of magnitude cost increase for cloud it's not as clear cut as just seeing a wave on a graph :)

bigiain 4y ago

Because Netflix are big enough that they don’t pay the same AWS prices and you and I.

betaby 4y ago

Video is NOT served from AWS at all. They self host in fact. See https://papers.freebsd.org/2021/eurobsdcon/gallatin-netflix-freebsd-400gbps/ https://papers.freebsd.org/2021/eurobsdcon/gallatin-netflix-...

ksec 4y ago

1. Content are served from their own Appliance. 2. Content Encoding are not done at a regular interval. And most of their work on ML and other quality requirements does not require fixed interval either. i.e They are schedule to work in Spot when AWS price are at its lowest. 3. Netflix get huge discount anyway.