4 ms·

> At Netflix we have a massive EC2 Linux cloud Wait a minute. I thought Netflix famously ran FreeBSD.

by CodeCompost 1y ago

craftkiller 1y ago
My understanding was their CDN ran on FreeBSD, but not their API servers. But I don't work for Netflix.
- diab0lic 1y ago
  Your understanding is correct.
  - achierius 1y ago
    Why did they not choose to use it for both (or neither)? I.e., what reasons for using FreeBSD on CDN servers would not also apply to using them for API servers?
    - seabrookmx 1y ago
      They are extremely different workloads so.. everything? The CDN servers are basically appliances, and are often embedded in various data centers (includes those ran by ISP's) to aggressively cache content. They care about high throughput and run a single workload. Being able to fine tune the entire stack, right down to the TCP/IP implementation is very valuable in this case. Since they ship the hardware and software, they can tightly integrate the two. By contrast, API workloads are very heterogeneous. I'd have to imagine the ability to run any standard Linux software there would also be a big plus. Linux clearly has much more vetting on cloud providers than FreeBSD as well.
      - aflag 1y ago
        Can't you fine tune linux as well? Does FreeBSD perform better somehow on a CDN workload? I find it difficult to imagine that the reason is performance. But I don't know what the reason is.
        craftkiller 1y ago
        Netflix discusses their reasons starting at 18:20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veQwkG0WdN8&t=18m20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veQwkG0WdN8&t=18m20s tl;dw: the performance, the efficiency of development, the community, FreeBSD is a complete operating system, the code base is smaller, the ports system, and the license. and this video covers the optimizations Netflix has made to FreeBSD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36qZYL5RlgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36qZYL5RlgY Also potentially a reason: According to drewg123, Linux's kTLS was broken. Which I see drewg123 also commenting in this thread. Is he the "Drew on my team" mentioned in the first video? Is he the speaker in the 2nd video? Idk https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28585008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28585008
drewg123 1y ago
The CDN runs FreeBSD. Linux is used for nearly everything else.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

> At Netflix we have a massive EC2 Linux cloud Wait a minute. I thought Netflix famously ran FreeBSD.

craftkiller 1y ago

My understanding was their CDN ran on FreeBSD, but not their API servers. But I don't work for Netflix.

diab0lic 1y ago
Your understanding is correct.
- achierius 1y ago
  Why did they not choose to use it for both (or neither)? I.e., what reasons for using FreeBSD on CDN servers would not also apply to using them for API servers?
  - seabrookmx 1y ago
    They are extremely different workloads so.. everything? The CDN servers are basically appliances, and are often embedded in various data centers (includes those ran by ISP's) to aggressively cache content. They care about high throughput and run a single workload. Being able to fine tune the entire stack, right down to the TCP/IP implementation is very valuable in this case. Since they ship the hardware and software, they can tightly integrate the two. By contrast, API workloads are very heterogeneous. I'd have to imagine the ability to run any standard Linux software there would also be a big plus. Linux clearly has much more vetting on cloud providers than FreeBSD as well.
    - aflag 1y ago
      Can't you fine tune linux as well? Does FreeBSD perform better somehow on a CDN workload? I find it difficult to imagine that the reason is performance. But I don't know what the reason is.
      - craftkiller 1y ago
        Netflix discusses their reasons starting at 18:20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veQwkG0WdN8&t=18m20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veQwkG0WdN8&t=18m20s tl;dw: the performance, the efficiency of development, the community, FreeBSD is a complete operating system, the code base is smaller, the ports system, and the license. and this video covers the optimizations Netflix has made to FreeBSD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36qZYL5RlgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36qZYL5RlgY Also potentially a reason: According to drewg123, Linux's kTLS was broken. Which I see drewg123 also commenting in this thread. Is he the "Drew on my team" mentioned in the first video? Is he the speaker in the 2nd video? Idk https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28585008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28585008

drewg123 1y ago

The CDN runs FreeBSD. Linux is used for nearly everything else.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]