
Netflix Shuts Down Final Bits of Own Data Center Infrastructure - prostoalex
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2016/02/11/netflix-shuts-down-final-bits-of-own-data-center-infrastructure/
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danhou
Is it just me, or is it a massive risk to have your entire infrastructure
hosted by a company who is also one of your chief competitors?

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diab0lic
You'd be surprised at what a good job the individual pieces of Amazon's empire
do at operating as individual units as far as competition is concerned. It
would be VERY bad business to "screw" an AWS customer because they competed
with some other part of the organization as a whole. Given that Amazon
operates in so many spaces and could potentially expand to any space, this
behavior would effectively make AWS unappealing for a significant portion of
customers.

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cstejerean
I'd like to believe this, but then I can't buy an Apple TV through Amazon
because of some petty dispute over Prime Video (which I really don't care
about). So if Amazon the store can pull products to try to protect prime
video, then how can I be sure that other units won't?

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modeless
Yeah, same thing with Chromecast. Booted off Amazon in a lame attempt to boost
Prime Video and Fire TV Stick sales.

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firloop
Well, they claimed they removed non-Amazon devices because they didn't support
Prime Video. However, for stuff like Chromecast, the burden lies on the app
developer (which would be Amazon) to implement Google's Cast SDKs to provide
support.

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harrisonhjones
First read: [http://www.androidauthority.com/amazon-new-app-forced-
google...](http://www.androidauthority.com/amazon-new-app-forced-
google-574104/) to understand that Google won't allow competing app stores.
([https://play.google.com/about/developer-distribution-
agreeme...](https://play.google.com/about/developer-distribution-
agreement.html) for more details section 4.5)

As per this document:
[https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/android_sender](https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/android_sender)
You need Google Play Services (see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Play_Services#Concerns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Play_Services#Concerns))
to write an Android app with the Cast API.

Because of this, Amazon cannot distribute Google Play Services on their own
Android devices and therefor cannot use their own Android devices to cast to a
Chromecast. They could enable Prime Video on other Android devices but not
their own. They feel this will cause confusion and therefor have decided not
to write a Prime Video app for Chromecast. Saying "oh, Amazon just doesn't
want to write a Prime Video app for Chromecast", while true, doesn't truly
explain the complexities of the situation.

The business decision to remove Chromecasts from the network steps from the
above desire to prevent confusion. I personally don't agree with it but I
understand it.

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trequartista
Actual blog post on the Netflix site - [https://media.netflix.com/en/company-
blog/completing-the-net...](https://media.netflix.com/en/company-
blog/completing-the-netflix-cloud-migration)

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late2part
Great story, brah. Except for the CDN.

[https://openconnect.netflix.com/peeringLocations/](https://openconnect.netflix.com/peeringLocations/)

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michaelbuckbee
Wasn't familiar with OpenConnect. It is the program where Netflix puts a
caching server in an ISP's datacenter so that the traffic is more "local" and
cheaper for all involved.

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2trill2spill
OpenConnect is the CDN that serves the actual Netflix video, it's Based on
FreeBSD 10 and Nginx. Netflix puts them in ISP's and internet peering
locations across the internet.

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mattdeboard
Is Netflix at the top end of some curve? My understanding of moving from cloud
-> datacenter is, you know, there is some line where it's cheaper to just
lease your hardware than pay for cloud infrastructure. At that size you tend
to have DBAs, dedicated infrastructure people, etc., to make scaling up go.

But now has Netflix come through that line where the cost savings is
outweighed by the uptime/availability etc.?

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easytiger
It would be beneficial for amazon to sell their services at 50% off to take
netflix out of the game of running the DC themselves for the next 15 years

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vidarh
Much, much less. If you spend more than a couple of millions a year on AWS
you're being robbed if you haven't negotiated a much steeper discount than
50%. I happen to know of companies paying ~25% of published AWS prices.
Especially on bandwidth, the published AWS prices are almost criminal - I'd be
surprised if Netflix pays even 10% of published prices.

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ksec
Well they still own ( I think ) their CDN hardware. Which is essentially the
Core and most heavy part of Global Video Delivery.

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Animats
Ah. So 99% of the traffic doesn't flow through AWS.

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dzdt
Netflix is in the video distribution business. Their usage is hugely variable
over the course of a day. AWS is in the cloud computing business. They are
good at selling unused server time. If netflix ran their own datacenters, they
would have to pay for infrastructure to sit unused for most of the day to meet
their peak demand. With AWS someone else is using and paying for that
infrastructure in off hours. The cost-savings for netflix and synergy for AWS
make the deal make sense.

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iofj
Keep in mind that all but the business rules actually run in their own custom
CDN nodes around the world, not in these cloud setups.

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jedberg
You have that backwards. Everything runs in AWS except serving raw video bits
from very stripped down boxes in data centers around the world. Those boxes in
the CDN do literally nothing but serve video files via https very quickly.

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2trill2spill
Openconnect does not serve https it's http, although they are evaluating using
https.

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jedberg
I'm 100% sure it is https (I worked there). But if you don't believe me you
can sniff your network traffic the next time you play a movie on Netflix. :)

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ghostek
Interesting bits about the microsrvices approach. Other companies like
Microsoft still need to wake up and understand the value of small teams,
microservices deployed in isolation, real devops etc.

~~~
panamafrank
check out MS Orleans, it's similar to Erlang.
[https://github.com/dotnet/orleans](https://github.com/dotnet/orleans)

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ghostek
I heard about Orleans but how much is it in use internally at MS? Lot of
services are not even on Azure, yet? Ever? It's well known that new fancy
modern approaches take years to be understood and absorbed int the company
strategy, think Git, Agile, elastic services, REST, mobile... Don't get me
wrong I'd love to see MS going back to be an innovator, and Orleans might be
an oppotunity. How long has it been cooking, 2 3 years? Where's the disruptive
plan to make it the new paradigm?

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us0r
>I heard about Orleans but how much is it in use internally at MS

They have a small game called Halo which uses it.

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tetraverse
What did it cost to transfer Netflix to AWS and what are the running costs
charged to Netflix. I recall reading somewhere that the first attempt was less
than successful, and Amazon had to virtually rebuild the service from scratch.

~~~
tetraverse
Answering me own question ..

"NETFLIX OpenConnect Appliance deployment guide:"

[http://oc.nflxvideo.net/docs/OpenConnect-Deployment-
Guide.pd...](http://oc.nflxvideo.net/docs/OpenConnect-Deployment-Guide.pdf)

