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Netflix Open-Sources "Janitor Monkey" AWS Cleanup Tool

Posted by samzenpus on from the monkey-hate-clean dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Netflix has released 'Janitor Monkey,' an open-source tool for killing old Amazon Web Services (AWS) instances, that began life as an in-house product. While those hosting a private data center will have little use for this scrubbin' simian, those enterprises with a public cloud can add Janitor Monkey to their administrative bag of tricks. The premise behind the tool is a simple one: while AWS allows for easy (and cheap) experimentation, it's easy for even the most diligent IT pro to rack up unnecessary costs when they forget to shut off a particular instance. While Netflix's Asgard tool—open-sourced in June, because this is how the company rolls—allows administrators to delete unused resources, Janitor Monkey takes things one step further by allowing those instances to be automatically found so that Asgard can clean them up. Over the past year, Janitor Monkey has deleted more than 5,000 resources running in the Netflix production and test environments, the company said. Janitor Monkey detects AWS instances, EBS volumes, EBS volume snapshots, and auto-scaling group."

7 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. This was needed by sandytaru · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I had an AWS instance that just wouldn't die. Turns out it had some EBS function on the image that caused the instance to zombie itself and come back from the dead every time I killed it - wouldn't shut off permanently til the EBS thing was killed first. Very annoying.

    If Janitor Monkey can do this automatically, it'll save some admins a lot of headaches - and money.

    --
    Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
  2. License is Apache 2.0 by CrashandDie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For those of you wondering, the code is open sourced under the Apache 2.0 license.

    You'd think that kind of information would be in the summary, or at the very least the article, but no, you actually have to go and find the repository to find what license it's released under.

  3. Netflix uses Amazon Cloud by HardYakka · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Isn't it odd that Netflix runs their streaming service on Amazon's infrastructure, given that they are a streaming video customer competitor?

    1. Re:Netflix uses Amazon Cloud by cdrudge · · Score: 3, Informative

      No different than Apple at one time (and maybe still) running iCloud on Microsoft's Azure cloud service in addition to Amazon's.

    2. Re:Netflix uses Amazon Cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just went to an Amazon conference where they talked about just that thing. Netflix CEO and Jeff Bezos talked about it on stage. Basically, neither of them are threatened by the other, and are happy to play nice. Netflix's business benefits AWS, and obviously vice versa. Just a bunch of nerds, getting along.

  4. Cuz that's how we roll. by Rob_Bryerton · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How about releasing a Linux client, then you can tell us how cool you are, how you "roll".

  5. Open source: We run it but don't support it by whois · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Thanks for releasing something to the world that someone else might have a use for. Why does your service, which completely defines your company, and uses Linux heavily in it's backend, consider Linux users to be pirates and not allow them to use your product?

    I "roll" with other services, like youtube, or hulu, or amazon which allow users to stream to Linux platforms.