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Netflix Shuts Down Final Bits of Own Data Center Infrastructure

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31–40 of 75 posts

Re: Netflix Shuts Down Final Bits of Own Data Center Infrastructure

#32
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Heroku, then? They are on AWS, and compete with AWS.

AWS and Heroku aren't really competitors. Firstly, since AWS is IaaS, whereas Heroku is PaaS, they target different users. More importantly, Heroku is built on top of AWS, so Amazon gets paid for all the resources used by Heroku apps.

AWS has Elastic Beanstalk, which is a Heroku competitor.

Re: Netflix Shuts Down Final Bits of Own Data Center Infrastructure

#33
post #2

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.

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.

Re: Netflix Shuts Down Final Bits of Own Data Center Infrastructure

#34
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Heroku, then? They are on AWS, and compete with AWS.

AWS and Heroku aren't really competitors. Firstly, since AWS is IaaS, whereas Heroku is PaaS, they target different users. More importantly, Heroku is built on top of AWS, so Amazon gets paid for all the resources used by Heroku apps.

Not strictly true. Elastic Beanstalk is PaaS.

Re: Netflix Shuts Down Final Bits of Own Data Center Infrastructure

#36

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.?

It's important to keep this in mind: For most companies, their infrastructure is the second largest expense after their employees. For Netflix, the cost of both pales in comparison to the content licensing (which in 2016 they have said is 6 billion). Cost isn't a huge concern, agility is far more important.

That being said, the all in cost for Netflix on AWS is still cheaper than trying to run nine datacenters around the world, which is what they would have to do to replace their usage of AWS.

Re: Netflix Shuts Down Final Bits of Own Data Center Infrastructure

#37
post #4

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?

This isn't that uncommon. Apple and Samsung are competitors in many markets, but Apple will still buy Samsung parts.

Re: Netflix Shuts Down Final Bits of Own Data Center Infrastructure

#38
post #4

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?

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 unappeal…

That's not the problem. The problem is if Netflix is paying Amazon, then their cost is infrastructure + profit, whereas Amazon only has infrastructure costs.

Fundamentally it means Amazon can be more competitive, and Netflix are hoping they can stay ahead on the user experience curve.

Re: Netflix Shuts Down Final Bits of Own Data Center Infrastructure

#39
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AWS and Heroku aren't really competitors. Firstly, since AWS is IaaS, whereas Heroku is PaaS, they target different users. More importantly, Heroku is built on top of AWS, so Amazon gets paid for all the resources used by Heroku apps.

AWS has Elastic Beanstalk, which is a Heroku competitor.

AWS' RDS offer also directly competes with heroku's Postgres packages

Re: Netflix Shuts Down Final Bits of Own Data Center Infrastructure

#40
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unappeal…

That's not the problem. The problem is if Netflix is paying Amazon, then their cost is infrastructure + profit, whereas Amazon only has infrastructure costs. Fundamentally it means Amazon can be more competitive, and Netflix are hoping they can stay ahead on the user experience curve.

I'm betting on it. Not sure how big you think the AWS bills are. :)

Edit: See jedberg's comment below for where the real money goes.

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