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Why Netflix Is One of the Most Important Cloud Computing Companies
Brandon Butler writes "Netflix, yes the video rental company Netflix, is changing the cloud game. During the past two years the company has pulled back the curtains through its Netflix OSS program to provide a behind-the-scenes look into how it runs one of the largest deployments of Amazon Web Services cloud-based resources. In doing so, the company is creating tools that can be used by both entire business-size scale cloud deployments and even smaller test environments. The Simian Army, for example randomly kills off VMs or entire availability zones in Amazon's cloud to test fault tolerance, Asgard is a cloud resource dashboard and Lipstick on (Apache) Pig, is a data visualization tool for the Hadoop program; there are dozens of others that help deploy, manage and monitor the tens of thousands of VM instances the company company can be running at any single time. Netflix is also creating a cadre of developers who are experts in managing cloud deployments, and already its former employees are popping up at other companies to bring their expertise on how to run a large-scale cloud resources. Meanwhile, Netflix does this all in AWS's cloud, which raises some questions of how good of a job it's actually doing when it can be massively impacted by cloud outages, such as the one on Christmas Eve last year that brought down Netflix's services but, interestingly, not Amazon's own video streaming system, which is a competitor to the company."
Yes, lets all praise the glory of the company that single handedly rammed DRM into HTML5 and proliferated it to numerous new platforms (Android 4.3 and ChromeOS). What a splendid company. All so people can watch some of the worst entertainment in human history.
Meanwhile, Netflix does this all in AWS's cloud, which raises some questions of how good of a job it's actually doing when it can be massively impacted by cloud outages, such as the one on Christmas Eve last year that brought down Netflix's services but, interestingly, not Amazon's own video streaming system, which is a competitor to the company.
How easily people forget that AWS is Amazon's excess server capacity. They are not a traditional hosting provider, and woe to those who forget that fact.
If ever there was a company big enough to save money by not going with a 3rd party for their hosting, it's Netflix. Why the hell are they on AWS? Youtube (Google) not only owns the servers, they bought a lot of the fiber lines too. What is Netflix thinking? Of course, given past brilliant decisions by Netflix, my guess would be "nothing logical" but this takes it to brave new levels of stupidity.
That is all !!
Just because something is hosted in the cloud does not mean that it is more or less subject to outages. Outages happen regardless of where it is hosted. In-house, cloud or on your own PC - that's life - deal with it!
While I watch Netflix, I sometimes think about all of the magic that must be going on behind the scenes to deal with varying delivery speed
In almost all cases, my video entertainment proceeds, uninterrupted
As a guy who has worked with video streaming at the lowest level, I have nothing but respect for their tech
It frustrates me that a company that relies so heavily on open source technologies on the server totally snubs users of those same open source technologies on the Desktop.
How they do the perform so consistently, amaizing
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I hate Missouri Nazis.
Personally I don't use NetFlix - just not interested. But recently I was helping a friend manage her budget, and I noted that she had NetFlix automatically debiting her account. This is a very bad practice (good for corporations - bad for people), so I suggested we change it. Turns out you can't: If you want to sign up for NetFlix, you have to hand over a credit card and authorize them to automatically charge your account.
I talked via chat with a NetFlix rep to see if ther was an alternative. The suggestion: Sign up (and pay) for a year in advance. And when the year is up? - NetFlix will start automatically charging your credit card! In other words - give NetFlix access to your credit card or go away.
I will *never* authorize a company to automatically charge my credit card or debit my bank account, and I'll never do business with a company that offers no other option.
Implying cloud companies ARE important!
I've been a user of both services since they became available. Along with Amazon Unbox now becoming Amazon Instant Video and the even newer Amazon Instant Video with Prime, I humbly suggest that we consider that a large part of the Amazon Prime streaming library may actually be served to us by a white-label Netflix service.
Consider this: both Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video offer many of the same programming options with a few selections unavailable on one service or the other. Plus, there are many obscure series collections that appear on both services and at the same perceived video quality (at least, to my eyes).
The bulk of the live streaming library has to be shared, in my opinion, with Netflix. Business-wise, it makes sense. Logically, it makes even more sense.
Kriston
I still go to my local video store to rent movies or buy the DVDF/Bluray. I get commenataries, extra scenes and can watch it whenever I want. Eventually, Netflix deletes stuff from their libraries. What do we do with a movie we want to see again later? Some cloud services I do use, like Crunchyroll. But I much rather get the DVD set.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
Impressive technology, though I don't agree with some of the testing they do live in production. But important? Hardly. If Netflix went away right *now*, nothing inthe World would really change.
Compared to, say, Google's search going offline which would have a direct impact on both personal and business productivity globally.
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Well, double-reply fail. But here is my report. On Phenom II X6 1045T and 240GT with 8GB, Netflix desktop plays like shit. The audio is OK but the video is stuttery. It's butter-smooth in an XP VM. Netflix Desktop is shit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I refuse to do business with Netflix, because they send spam. Yes, I have personally received unsolicited commercial E-mail from Netflix, like the people writing at the two links I cite. Any company that uses and/or promotes spam should be boycotted and shunned.
Be who you are...and be it in style!