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Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

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Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#71
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see their thought process— "Netflix will most likely exist even if we don't provide them server services as there exist other cloud providers and / or Netflix is big enough to roll their own, so we might as well have a piece of our competitor's success by having their infra spend come to us."

Netflix absolutely should roll their own system. At the very least as a meta layer on top of the major cloud providers.

So Netflix now needs to hire and manage a huge infrastructure team that they don't have today. (Not to say they don't have ops folks but the incremental need would be enormous.)

That's not to say it might not be a worthwhile approach over the long run but it would be a huge strategic investment in something that has essentially nothing to do with what they view as their core differentiating service to customers.

Would Netflix have done things differently if they had known they'd reach this level of usage? Perhaps. But disentangling now would be very difficult and almost certainly disruptive--including a likely reduction in quality of service.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#72
post #71
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix absolutely should roll their own system. At the very least as a meta layer on top of the major cloud providers.

So Netflix now needs to hire and manage a huge infrastructure team that they don't have today. (Not to say they don't have ops folks but the incremental need would be enormous.) That's not to say it might not be a worthwhile approach over the long run but it would be a huge strategic investment in something that has essentially nothing to do with what they view as their core differentiating service to customers. Woul…

Their infrastructure team + infrastructure would be cheaper then their Amazon spend, guaranteed (based on known Amazon margins).

And disentangling be disruptive? Stand up your new datacenter and shift your apps over with DNS when they're ready to serve production traffic. If you can move traffic between regions, you can move it between on prem and cloud.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#73
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see their thought process— "Netflix will most likely exist even if we don't provide them server services as there exist other cloud providers and / or Netflix is big enough to roll their own, so we might as well have a piece of our competitor's success by having their infra spend come to us."

Netflix absolutely should roll their own system. At the very least as a meta layer on top of the major cloud providers.

We have, and we open sourced it :)

https://www.spinnaker.io/

Here is a blog post (2010) describing the decision to move out of our own data centers:

https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/four-reasons-we-choose-a...

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#74
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see their thought process— "Netflix will most likely exist even if we don't provide them server services as there exist other cloud providers and / or Netflix is big enough to roll their own, so we might as well have a piece of our competitor's success by having their infra spend come to us."

Netflix absolutely should roll their own system. At the very least as a meta layer on top of the major cloud providers.

I'm pretty sure they do a lot of their own stuff, AFAIK, they run their own CDN, and then use AWS for everything else.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#75
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix absolutely should roll their own system. At the very least as a meta layer on top of the major cloud providers.

We have, and we open sourced it :) https://www.spinnaker.io/ Here is a blog post (2010) describing the decision to move out of our own data centers: https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/four-reasons-we-choose-a...

[deleted]

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#76

I don't understand why people think that companies can get special pricing from AWS but not drive feature development. Large customers like Netflix, GE & friends get to drive feature development. Heck, if you're the CIA and give AWS $600 MM they will build a private region for you! This post has two contradictory quotes in my opinion: "It’s worth noting that this AWS price wouldn’t be what Facebook paid in this hypot…

Sidenote: It's remarkable that Amazon happily provides server services to Netflix, who is a huge competitor!

It's not remarkable its Bezos' business strategy.

The way he thinks about things is it's not a threat to his business to have competitors in his space not just because he is prepared to undercut them on cost but because he knows that his true focus is on customer satisfaction. And competition, whether through providing customers with a choice or encouraging his own systems to provide better services is good for his business.

But in this case it's really just because Netflix is too insignificant to matter to Amazon overall. It's just a tiny fraction of their revenue and what they're trying to do.

And if you want to be Machiavellian of course it's good because then Amazon has leverage of Netflix.

Seriously how would it look if Amazon turned down a company because they were competing? It would be an admission of defeat and weakness for AZ. That's not how an "apex predator" thinks.

Keep your friends close, and your competitors....

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#77
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...which gives you a moderately-expensive pile of laser-focused hardware and nothing to run on it. Far less than half the infrastructure story. (Not that I'm criticizing Facebook. Open-sourcing code is hard -- see Borg.)

Nothing to run on it??

Correct. "Infrastructure" means a lot of things. You don't get Tupperware, their scheduling and resource management infrastructure, most of their logging infra, most of their monitoring infra, operating systems for the whitebox hardware, even power and facilities management for the OC stuff... I could go on. They are quite good about releasing open source, which is why I was careful to point out that I'm not criticizing Facebook; open sourcing this stuff is really hard, because internal software develops tendrils to other internal things that you often don't want to open source.

The point was that yes, Open Compute exists, but its existence is only partially relevant when one claims that Facebook has opened their "infrastructure." The two sentences in GP are basically what I'm responding to -- mainly the verbatim "FB open sourced their infrastructure" -- and I guess the implied context of Facebook infrastructure was lost when I said "nothing to run on it," sorry. I meant Facebook code. So this is clear: Open Compute is good, and I'm appreciative of Facebook, just want to make sure we understand what "open infrastructure" means and its limitations in this case.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#78
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Would it be legal for them not to?

IANAL but I don't see a judge deciding that AWS doesn't have a million competitors in every dedicated server host or collocation datacenter, even when AWS was the only cloud infrastructure provider. As long as antitrust laws don't apply, freedom of association is pretty unassailable.

[deleted]

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#79
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing to run on it??

Correct. "Infrastructure" means a lot of things. You don't get Tupperware, their scheduling and resource management infrastructure, most of their logging infra, most of their monitoring infra, operating systems for the whitebox hardware, even power and facilities management for the OC stuff... I could go on. They are quite good about releasing open source, which is why I was careful to point out that I'm not criticiz…

[deleted]

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#80
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the reason Facebook doesn't resell their infrastructure is because their endgame is to _be_ the internet. From their point of view, any site you're on that isn't Facebook is their competition.

FB open sourced their infrastructure. Anyone can lift these designs and build their data centers using identical specs. http://www.opencompute.org/wiki/Server/SpecsAndDesigns

>anyone
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