
Flux: A New Approach to System Intuition - _jomo
http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/10/flux-new-approach-to-system-intuition.html
======
nstart
Is it just me or has the Netflix engineering team really been cranking out
good stuff as of recent times? I mean holy crap. This thing feels so
futuristic just watching it. I can't begin to express how blown away I am.

Given how crazy creative the netflix team is, it's not a stretch to imagine
their next hackathon. Put this on a big screen and sit in front of it. Throw
in a few hazard lights and a siren and music that plays automatically the
moment there's a failure and it's a done deal.

Side note: If you want to get a better understanding of what you are reading,
the inline linked article[1] is a must read

Also, I actually thought the pain suit was a real thing for a moment. Well
played Netflix. Well played.

[1][http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/09/chaos-engineering-
upgrad...](http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/09/chaos-engineering-
upgraded.html)

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stedaniels
For those reading comments first and hoping a title like this means Netflix is
finally doing something decent in the way suggestions and not showing the same
move/show on multiple sliders on the same page. I.e. it's now got better
intuition.. you'll be disappointed.

If your looking for really fancy Netflix network infrastructure stuff, dive
right in! They are great at this stuff :-D

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mwagstaff
Reminds me of Logstalgia, which was a cool log visualization tool for its time
- [http://logstalgia.io/](http://logstalgia.io/)

~~~
outworlder
Never had heard of that, thanks!

EDIT: apparently, by the author of
Gource([http://gource.io/](http://gource.io/)). That one I had used before.

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rocketcity
I want this NOW. Anyone know if they are planning on open-sourcing this
project?

~~~
oh_sigh
Uh...you realize the visualization is probably the easiest part of this tool?
Getting realtime insight into your network is the much harder problem, and you
will need to implement that all yourself.

~~~
webXL
Unless you're starting from the ground up...

------
pitchups
For a moment there I thought the "pain" suit was real- as it reminded me of
this TED talk:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_se...](http://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_senses_for_humans?language=en)

A more humane, non-painful version of the suit may be entirely possible!

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aristus
Nice! A few years ago I made a little program like this, called packet flight,
to visualize network flows. It's a nice way to see the magic:

[https://vimeo.com/17248120](https://vimeo.com/17248120)

------
lovelydrop
and yet, they cannot come up with a creative name

~~~
aikah
Funny you say that. JSX existed as a language that compiles to javascript
before Facebook choosed to use that name :

[https://github.com/jsx/JSX](https://github.com/jsx/JSX)

and don't get me started on flux,relay or graphQL ...

~~~
netghost
And even before that Firefox supported a different JSX which also let you
embed xml in JS. Looks like they removed it some time ago...

~~~
aikah
I think you are talking about e4x. It is really too bad it didn't end up in
the spec.

------
PudgePacket
It's pretty amazing that the traffic was nearly entirely redirected in 20
seconds and then whatever issue that was plaguing the server was resolved so
quickly.

~~~
mAritz
The latter part is because it was a simulated failure using their Chaos Kong
(follow their link to Chaos Experiment:
[http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/09/chaos-engineering-
upgrad...](http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/09/chaos-engineering-
upgraded.html) ).

~~~
mkobit
A really interesting article from a couple years ago that talks about their
tech behind the regional failover can be found here:
[http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/12/active-active-for-
multi-...](http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/12/active-active-for-multi-
regional.html)

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jordanwallwork
Seems stupid to call it flux

~~~
thechriswalker
Surely it's because it looks like a flux capacitor. Seems reasonable to me.

~~~
bdchauvette
The GP might be referring to the fact that Facebook also has a project called
Flux [1].

[1] [https://facebook.github.io/flux/](https://facebook.github.io/flux/)

~~~
agumonkey
Agreed, considering how new and trendy Flux is ... that is a weird name usage.

------
3lux
cool! but they couldn't have thought of a different name?

~~~
BaconJuice
They named it flux because it looks like the Flux Capacitor.

[http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Flux_capacitor](http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Flux_capacitor)

Perfect name if you ask me :)

~~~
webXL
I thought this article was a new use-case of FB's Flux initially.

Great name, but perhaps the headline could have read "Netflix Flux: ..." or
"Traffic Flux: ..."

