Live data from Hacker News

Prime Video service dumps microservices, cuts AWS bill 90%

thestack.technology

1–10 of 42 posts

Re: Prime Video service dumps microservices, cuts AWS bill 90%

#3
Here’s a link to the actual blog post from Amazon: https://www.primevideotech.com/video-streaming/scaling-up-th...

It’s worth noting that the team that wrote the article is just a small part of Prime Video. The headline can definitely be interpreted to mean the entire Prime Video service.

Re: Prime Video service dumps microservices, cuts AWS bill 90%

#6
This sounds like a bad first design:

- didn’t just grab the whole video (or ~1min segment), but individual frames

- put each detector in its own context, needing its own copy

- created a StepFunction for each tiny piece

This never would’ve passed design review when I worked at Amazon because the combinatorial blowout is obvious and predictable.

I’m sure they switched to what was considered good practice even then:

- a single StepFunction per video

- a batch step across segments

- downloading in bulk, to a single container

- running all the detectors together

The problem wasn’t serverless or micro services: this was just bad design.

Re: Prime Video service dumps microservices, cuts AWS bill 90%

#8
post #6

This sounds like a bad first design: - didn’t just grab the whole video (or ~1min segment), but individual frames - put each detector in its own context, needing its own copy - created a StepFunction for each tiny piece This never would’ve passed design review when I worked at Amazon because the combinatorial blowout is obvious and predictable. I’m sure they switched to what was considered good practice even then: -…

If this was a system design interview, would this design be approved?

Re: Prime Video service dumps microservices, cuts AWS bill 90%

#9
post #6

This sounds like a bad first design: - didn’t just grab the whole video (or ~1min segment), but individual frames - put each detector in its own context, needing its own copy - created a StepFunction for each tiny piece This never would’ve passed design review when I worked at Amazon because the combinatorial blowout is obvious and predictable. I’m sure they switched to what was considered good practice even then: -…

This assumes the current functionality is the same as it was when it was originally created.

Re: Prime Video service dumps microservices, cuts AWS bill 90%

#10
post #6

This sounds like a bad first design: - didn’t just grab the whole video (or ~1min segment), but individual frames - put each detector in its own context, needing its own copy - created a StepFunction for each tiny piece This never would’ve passed design review when I worked at Amazon because the combinatorial blowout is obvious and predictable. I’m sure they switched to what was considered good practice even then: -…

This assumes the current functionality is the same as it was when it was originally created.

The article from Prime Video says that it has largely the same functionality, while outlining problems from the initial version.
Post reply on HN