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Netflix Billing Migration to AWS

techblog.netflix.com

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Re: Netflix Billing Migration to AWS

#41

Post by truncate »

partiallypro wrote: post #36

I find it to be a peculiar business decision to completely (as much as you can) migrate to one of your largest competitors' cloud service. It seems like Microsoft is the only, of the larger cloud providers, that doesn't -really- compete with Netflix. (Google has YouTube, and I guess even Microsoft has a much smaller Windows Store presence.) Even if Amazon can't access the raw data, they could see how you're utilizing…

As per this article, Netflix only migrated their billing infrastructure not their video streaming service.

Re: Netflix Billing Migration to AWS

#42

Post by lapitopi »

hetfeld wrote: post #12

Dropped Oracle, using MySQL. Why not use PostgreSQL instead?

I work on the Netflix Billing Team.

PostgreSQL was indeed a very attractive option, but we wanted to keep a path to Aurora open. When we were working on the migration, Aurora was still in beta, so instead of going to Aurora directly, we decided run our own MySQL instances on EC2.

Re: Netflix Billing Migration to AWS

#43

Post by moosingin3space »

mgrennan wrote: post #30
justicezyx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is explicit policy inside AWS to not access any user data.

And Sodden is wrong. The government is not collecting your data.

Different scenarios. Netflix could sue Amazon for breach of contract if there were evidence of them mining their data.

Re: Netflix Billing Migration to AWS

#44

Post by hkmurakami »

partiallypro wrote: post #36

I find it to be a peculiar business decision to completely (as much as you can) migrate to one of your largest competitors' cloud service. It seems like Microsoft is the only, of the larger cloud providers, that doesn't -really- compete with Netflix. (Google has YouTube, and I guess even Microsoft has a much smaller Windows Store presence.) Even if Amazon can't access the raw data, they could see how you're utilizing…

If you think about it, Apple does something similar by having Samsung fab their processors.

Re: Netflix Billing Migration to AWS

#45

Post by luhn »

truncate wrote: post #41
partiallypro wrote: post #36

I find it to be a peculiar business decision to completely (as much as you can) migrate to one of your largest competitors' cloud service. It seems like Microsoft is the only, of the larger cloud providers, that doesn't -really- compete with Netflix. (Google has YouTube, and I guess even Microsoft has a much smaller Windows Store presence.) Even if Amazon can't access the raw data, they could see how you're utilizing…

As per this article, Netflix only migrated their billing infrastructure not their video streaming service.

They only migrated their billing infrastructure because the rest of Netflix is already in AWS. As far as I'm aware, the only non-AWS Netflix component remaining is their CDN. (And it will likely remain that way.)

Re: Netflix Billing Migration to AWS

#46

Post by niftich »

truncate wrote: post #41
partiallypro wrote: post #36

I find it to be a peculiar business decision to completely (as much as you can) migrate to one of your largest competitors' cloud service. It seems like Microsoft is the only, of the larger cloud providers, that doesn't -really- compete with Netflix. (Google has YouTube, and I guess even Microsoft has a much smaller Windows Store presence.) Even if Amazon can't access the raw data, they could see how you're utilizing…

As per this article, Netflix only migrated their billing infrastructure not their video streaming service.

That's because they've already migrated their videostreaming infrastructure to AWS (and some in Google Cloud Storage as a failsafe).

This Ars Technica article from February summarizes the multi-year effort: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/netfli...

Re: Netflix Billing Migration to AWS

#47

Post by [deleted] »

hkmurakami wrote: post #44
partiallypro wrote: post #36

I find it to be a peculiar business decision to completely (as much as you can) migrate to one of your largest competitors' cloud service. It seems like Microsoft is the only, of the larger cloud providers, that doesn't -really- compete with Netflix. (Google has YouTube, and I guess even Microsoft has a much smaller Windows Store presence.) Even if Amazon can't access the raw data, they could see how you're utilizing…

If you think about it, Apple does something similar by having Samsung fab their processors.

[deleted]

Re: Netflix Billing Migration to AWS

#48

Post by hiuhsdf »

partiallypro wrote: post #36

I find it to be a peculiar business decision to completely (as much as you can) migrate to one of your largest competitors' cloud service. It seems like Microsoft is the only, of the larger cloud providers, that doesn't -really- compete with Netflix. (Google has YouTube, and I guess even Microsoft has a much smaller Windows Store presence.) Even if Amazon can't access the raw data, they could see how you're utilizing…

Yeah, this decision makes no sense, AWS is not even cost-effective past a certain, relatively small, amount of resource usage. Netflix could have easily built their own infrastructure for this, plenty of smaller companies do it and save tons of money. The only thing that would make sense here is if Amazon offered them their services at a huge discount, which could be a move looking to either acquire Netflix in the near future or cripple it.

Re: Netflix Billing Migration to AWS

#50

Post by drewrv »

hiuhsdf wrote: post #48
partiallypro wrote: post #36

I find it to be a peculiar business decision to completely (as much as you can) migrate to one of your largest competitors' cloud service. It seems like Microsoft is the only, of the larger cloud providers, that doesn't -really- compete with Netflix. (Google has YouTube, and I guess even Microsoft has a much smaller Windows Store presence.) Even if Amazon can't access the raw data, they could see how you're utilizing…

Yeah, this decision makes no sense, AWS is not even cost-effective past a certain, relatively small, amount of resource usage. Netflix could have easily built their own infrastructure for this, plenty of smaller companies do it and save tons of money. The only thing that would make sense here is if Amazon offered them their services at a huge discount, which could be a move looking to either acquire Netflix in the ne…

It's an easier task for a smaller company to pull off, and I'll bet Netflix is getting a better deal than most of us could negotiate.
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