Netflix: 'Arrested Development' Won't Crash Our Service

Nerval's Lobster writes "No, the latest season of 'Arrested Development' won't fatally crash Netflix, despite comedian David Cross's tongue-in-cheek comment that the series will melt down the company's servers on its first weekend of streaming availability. 'No one piece of content can have that kind of impact given the size of what we are serving up at any given time,' a spokesperson wrote in an email to Slashdot. Although 'Arrested Development' struggled to survive during its three seasons on Fox (from 2003 to 2006), the series has built a significant cult following in the years following its cancellation. Netflix commissioned a fourth season as part of a broader plan to augment its streaming service with exclusive content, and will release all 13 new episodes at once on May 26. Like Facebook, Google, and other Internet giants, Netflix has invested quite a bit in physical infrastructure and engineers. It stores its data on Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3), which offers a significant degree of durability and scalability; it also relies on Amazon's Elastic MapReduce (EMR) distribution of Apache Hadoop, along with tools within the Hadoop ecosystem such as Hive and Pig. That sort of backend can allow the company to handle much more than 13 seasons' worth of Bluths binged over one weekend — but that doesn't mean its streaming service is immune from the occasional high-profile failure."

Comments

isn't the content streamed via CDN?

[alen]

I was level 3 a few years ago and i have read that netflix has developed their own CDN as well
the content is inside most ISP's networks. Amazon is used for authentication and to store the viewing data

Re:isn't the content streamed via CDN?

[Anubis IV]

Yep. Netflix has Open Connect CDN to help serve up content to the users at individual ISPs. As I recall, they give away server appliances that hold a bit over a hundred TB of video to the ISPs, who then host it at their own expense at a peering facility they share with Netflix. One appliance is roughly capable of covering 70-90% of the content requests, according to some of the other documentation.

You mean like last Christmas?

[TWiTfan]

Yeah, I was reminded how durable Netflix was last Christmas when the ghosts of Christmas showed me the true meaning of bulletproof uptime.

Re:You mean like last Christmas?

[h4rr4r]

Still less outages than I had with cable.

Mind you I had TWC, so if you had a reputable provider instead you may have not had this level of outages.

Re:You mean like last Christmas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mind you I had TWC, so if you had a reputable provider instead you may have not had this level of outages.

There's a reputable cable provider?

Re:You mean like last Christmas?

[tompaulco]

I don't have my entertainment 24/7. WAAAAAA!!!!! WAAAAAAA!!!! What a jerk you are. More people will die today from lack of food than you'll ever know in your life and you have your panties in a bunch over a single outlet of the dozens you have to choose from for instant entertainment being down for one friggin night? What a pig.

What a jerk you are. More people will die today from lack of food than you'll ever know in your life and you have your panties in a bunch over a single guy complaining about entertainment options?

What a pig.

Let's not kid ourselves here

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Arrested Development is in the same boat as Firefly. It has hard core devoted fans, but there have never been enough of them. If it was really and truly as popular as its fans seem to think, it would still be on the air and it wouldn't be having to rely on Netflix to get available again. I watched the show a few times and it just didn't work for me at all. I really do not get what the big deal was. Let me put it another way - All you guys who posted about how Futurama sucks, so you're glad it's off the air - yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about Arrested Development. I will say that I really cannot think of any other show that Fox tried for so long to shove down its viewers throats despite plenty of evidence that most American TV viewers really did not care at about it and never were going to care about it no matter how long they kept it around and how many promos they ran for it.

Re:Let's not kid ourselves here

[h4rr4r]

Most American TV viewers watch Idol and Dancing with the stars, so we can ignore their judgement as a baseline for what is good.

I am pretty excited about this, I never watched the show on TV, but found it on Netflix and loved it. Netflix has recently been doing a great job creating content so I am pretty hopeful. I am really looking forward to next season of House of Cards.

Re: Let's not kid ourselves here

[Reverand Dave]

One of my good friends refuses to even consider watching big bang theory, he calls it "black-face for nerds."

Re: Let's not kid ourselves here

[Anonymous Coward]

they watched a show that belittles folks like me

You work at the cheesecake factory?

Re:Let's not kid ourselves here

[interval1066]

We fans KNOW it wasn't as popular as a mainstream show. So because the mainstream has deemed it a failure it should die a noble death and just be quiet? Sometimes the minority demands to be heard. Sorry your delicate sensibilities are getting damaged. Probably best to move on in life.

Re: Let's not kid ourselves here

[h4rr4r]

The average viewer is not watching for that reason, they are watching the equivalent of a minstrel show but with nerds instead of African Americans. They only want a caricature of what nerds are, and they want to laugh at them, not with them.

Re: Let's not kid ourselves here

[Cinder6]

One of my good friends refuses to even consider watching big bang theory, he calls it "black-face for nerds."

You know, that's a pretty good description. The show is full of the most ridiculous over-acting with one-dimensional (if that) characters with obnoxious voices and idiotic plotlines. I actually was looking forward to a sciency-type sitcom, but was disappointed to see it was the same traditional dross, only with "nerdy" characters. I put "nerdy" in quotes because they seemed more like socially maladjusted outcasts than nerds.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the new Arrested Development. I'm both pleased and displeased all the episodes will be released at once. I like being able to watch them without waiting a week between each airing, but the suspension is nice to savor it, and I know I won't have the self-control to make it last more than at most a week.

That said, I'm also a little worried about it. I was one of those who didn't like the new Futurama episodes (not even The Late Philip J. Fry, as it was quite depressing, even if touching), and I worry that with the actors being so much older now, some of the flair of the original show will be lost.

Re:Let's not kid ourselves here

[Cinder6]

I'm not going to pretend that everyone will, or should, like the show, but:

The reason I liked Arrested Development is because it's a serial sitcom with no laugh track that doesn't rely on vulgarity or shock value to deliver its laughs to anywhere near the same degree as other shows (see: How I Met Your Mother). I care about that not because I'm a prude, but because I appreciate that it forces the writers to be more creative, rather than regurgitating the same base jokes over and over again. AD also doesn't string the audience along for so long; again picking on HIMYM, that show will be in its 9th season before we actually meet the titular mother. Finally, I like the more varied cinematography that AD's use of single-camera shots allows.

At the same time, I think some of the above made it hard for AD to find a large audience. I know the lack of laugh track alienated some people, incredible though that seems to me, as I find laugh tracks to be an abomination. The serial nature makes it hard to pick up in the middle of a season, let alone the series, and the (slightly) more subtle humor might not be what Americans are looking for. The single-camera shots also made for higher production costs, which in turn hurt the bottom line.

Re: Let's not kid ourselves here

[TJamieson]

The reason given for releasing them all at once is that while there is an order they expect them to be viewed, they can be viewed in random order to get the stories in different perspectives. Portia de Rossi said something to the effect of if you watch her episode first, Lucille ends up looking particularly bitchy, but if you watch Jessica Walters' episode first, Lindsay ends up looking bitchy.

Re: Let's not kid ourselves here

[SolitaryMan]

... they seemed more like socially maladjusted outcasts than nerds.

Not to defend that stupid show, but honestly, I know some people from my Uni who (in terms of social adjustment) are way worse than Sheldon.

Re: Let's not kid ourselves here

[SolitaryMan]

I would not say that it belittles, it just emphasizes the wrong things. Being geek is not about reading comics and playing D&D, even if many geeks do like it.

The reason I don't feel belittled by that show is because *any* TV show is like that. ER and Dr. House has nothing to do with real doctors, CSI with real cops, American Idol with real musicians, Dancing with the Stars with neither dancers nor stars.

So, cheer up, it is business as usual.

Re: Let's not kid ourselves here

[fearofcarpet]

The thing about the Big Bang Theory is that there are little science-nerd jokes tucked into it that give me a chuckle, while the boiler plate sit com format still makes my wife laugh, who is European and doesn't get the subtle cultural jokes and wordplay of shows like Arrested Development. For example, why is Sheldon's face on the cover of the Journal of Physical Chemistry? That journal (or any other journal that I know of) would never put someone's face on the cover--let alone a theoretical physicist postdoc. I chose to take that as an inside joke because even the equations in the backgrounds of the sets were clearly vetted by people who know better. Meanwhile my wife thoroughly enjoys watching the various ham-handed relationships evolve. So neither of us is in love with show, but we both get some entertainment out if it... and voilà, mass appeal.

...I also think that the new Futurama isn't as good as the original, but it's hard to tell given that I was still in college when it first aired and I probably changed more than the show in time it was off the air. I hope Arrested Development has evolved with its audience, but I keep reminding myself that it can't possible meet my unrealistic expectations. At least they are releasing a whole batch at once so I can power through a few at a time to get re-immersed, rather than having to wait a week or more between episodes.

13 seasons?

[Brucelet]

Sounds great to me!

Gob?

[RoccamOccam]

'No one piece of content can have that kind of impact given the size of what we are serving up at any given time,' a spokesperson (Gob Bluth) wrote in an email to Slashdot.

to be soon followed by "I've made a huge mistake."

Re:Free Advertisement

[CODiNE]

It's news to me that Netflix can pick up new seasons of canceled shows. That's great news for shows that do better on DVD than on the air.

Re:I would be interested

[CrankyFool]

Check out http://techblog.netflix.com/ if you want to know more. We're cloud-hosted, BTW, except for the actual streaming bits which are on a combination of our own CDN and public CDNs.

(And we're hiring).

Signed,
A Netflix Employee