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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?

#141

Post by crispytx »

pier25 wrote: post #90
pryelluw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain point #2, please.

Let's imagine Facebook spends 2 billion on servers every year. If it could reduce the number of servers by 20% because of the better Go performance it would save 200 million every year. Go outperforms HHVM by a wider margin than 20%. I've seen benchmarks as high as 50%. Sure, benchmarks aren't real world applications, but it's safe to say that generally speaking Go is significantly faster than HHVM.

PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET BE LIKE: "Let's rewrite everything in Go."

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#142

Post by origami777 »

jaypaulynice wrote: post #131

"We estimate that Facebook has 830,000 servers in 2017." No way this can be true. Facebook scaled primarily using CDNs like Akamai. Akamai is the largest CDN in the world and has no more than 300k-350k servers all over the world. It's one of the largest distributed system in the world. I worked there, so I know this for sure. Facebook has recently been moving their data in house, but they do not have 830,000 servers.…

Not to be a jerk, but, running Facebook over AWS is not a CDN problem. That's crazy talk. There are far more Facebook requirements that AWS can meet that Akamai cannot. You have to look beyond their content delivery reqs.

Also, they could absolutely have 800k servers. I don't think comparing their size to Akamai is fair. The requirements of each company are drastically different.

Do I think the 830k is accurate? No, but only because these estimates are usually wrong (unless informed by an inside source).

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#143

Post by adamors »

crispytx wrote: post #140
sk1pper wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if I buy that Reddit is read-heavy compared to Facebook, got any data on that?

Reddit doesn't let people upload videos and pictures to their site. You have to post pictures and videos on other people sites and then link to them. Sort of the same thing with Netflix. Netflix doesn't have a bunch of people uploading stuff to their servers all the time.

Reddit allows (and encourages) people to upload images to their site for a year now: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4p5dm9/image...

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#144

Post by pc86 »

geggam wrote: post #119
closeparen wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your definition of "at scale" doesn't seem to leave room for Amazon, Netflix, or Uber (all in tens to low hundreds of million monthly active users according to a cursory Google search) but... those.

Guess my perspective of scale is different. Its just an observation of having worked on systems at scale and I dont see the microservices / containers used. I am curious if anyone else has. The more I am around containers and the network complexity/issues that are created the less I am convinced it is the most optimal way and I am looking for opinions that differ from mine so I can learn

Only about 3.2 million people have the internet (as of 2015). Your definition of scale is 12.5% of the entire connected world or more?

This is like the guy in these threads saying $400k a year for a software engineer is "market rate" and/or "easily achievable."

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#145

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

BurningFrog wrote: post #54
discodave wrote: post #44

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!

Making money from your competitors is a good thing. It also ensures their margin is worse than yours everything else equal.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#146

Post by IshKebab »

19eightyfour wrote: post #76
BurningFrog wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

> Seriously how would it look if Amazon turned down a company because they were competing?

It would look bad: https://www.wired.com/2015/10/amazon-apple-tv-chromecast/

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#147

Post by Amygaz »

BurningFrog wrote: post #54
discodave wrote: post #44

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!

If Amazon didn't host Netflix, Netflix would have been hosted on a competitor's platform. Nothing would have changed about Netflix and Amazon, plus many others, competing in the production and delivery of entertainment content.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#148

Post by 19eightyfour »

danielsamuels wrote: post #139
19eightyfour wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

Keep your friends close, and your competitors hosted

I love that, seriously. Machiavelli's Guide to PaaS.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#149

Post by toomuchtodo »

puzzle wrote: post #82
toomuchtodo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You assume that Netflix pays retail price.

I don't. I assume a deep discount because Amazon uses them as a shining case study, despite only their control plane/front end hosted with AWS.

Re: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

#150

Post by bamboozled »

adventured wrote: post #46
jzelinskie wrote: post #7

I think a lot of the smaller details this article glosses over contribute to FB's ability to run on so few machines. For example, comparing my anecdotes of FB's internal network (they probably have the most organized/mature IPv6 network on the planet) with those of my AWS public cloud experience, I'd reckon that a lot of FB applications would require architectural redesigns to operate in that kind of environment. The…

They went from $3.6 billion to $10.2 billion in net income in a year. The $3.6 billion is probably more net income than Amazon has generated combined in the last two decades. The $10 billion is more than Amazon will earn a decade from now. Their focus should be solely on what is going to likely end up being one of the three or four greatest money producing machines in world history (of those owned by a traditional co…

"Their focus should be solely on what is going to likely end up being one of the three or four greatest money producing machines in world"

Companies don't "produce money", that would just devalue currency.

I gusss you had a good go at making it sound cool.

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