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Why Dropbox decided to build its own infrastructure and network

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Re: Why Dropbox decided to build its own infrastructure and network

#91

Post by maccam94 »

shevy wrote: post #58

> While cost is always something that we consider, our > goal with our network expansion was to improve > performance, reliability, flexibility and control > for our users — which we have succeeded in doing,” > a company spokesperson told TechCrunch. Who believes this? It was, easily noticable by everyone, wanting to reduce the cost. Which is fine, everyone does so, so why not admit that it was the primary impetus? I…

Performance and reliability definitely affect subscription rates. Revenue growth is actually more important than decreasing costs (as long as your costs don't start increasing disproportionately).

Re: Why Dropbox decided to build its own infrastructure and network

#92

Post by dasil003 »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #20
kyledrake wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They run BGP and do an enormous amount of IX peering. https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/2906 AWS doesn't even let you do BGP. If you want to use them for a CDN, you're monopolized into their network and their blend of ridiculously overpriced bandwidth. They might be using AWS for the canonical store of data, but the sanity of using "the cloud" goes out the window the second you need to ship a lot of traffic to the public…

> heir blend of ridiculously overpriced bandwidth. For someone not at netflix's level, can you recommend somewhere with significantly cheaper bandwidth.

I built a global video CDN using SoftLayer a couple years ago and ended up paying around $0.01/GB.

Re: Why Dropbox decided to build its own infrastructure and network

#93

Post by amorphid »

xbmcuser wrote: post #33
swampthinker wrote: post #2

I'll be 100% honest, I didn't realize Dropbox was still on AWS. You figure at a certain scale it makes more sense to run your own solution.

Yeah and that's why it amazes me that Netflix uses Amazon a straight competitor that uses the money it makes from Netflix to compete with Amazon prime.

What's the largest cloud provider that does NOT offer a Netflix-like streaming video service? Amazon/AWS, Microsoft/Azure, and Google Cloud all have offer premium streaming content of some type. IBM Cloud?

Re: Why Dropbox decided to build its own infrastructure and network

#94

Post by shaklee3 »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #20
kyledrake wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They run BGP and do an enormous amount of IX peering. https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/2906 AWS doesn't even let you do BGP. If you want to use them for a CDN, you're monopolized into their network and their blend of ridiculously overpriced bandwidth. They might be using AWS for the canonical store of data, but the sanity of using "the cloud" goes out the window the second you need to ship a lot of traffic to the public…

> heir blend of ridiculously overpriced bandwidth. For someone not at netflix's level, can you recommend somewhere with significantly cheaper bandwidth.

Packet.net

Re: Why Dropbox decided to build its own infrastructure and network

#95

Post by chis »

mc32 wrote: post #87
late2part wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with no actual facts, i'll speculate. let's assume they have 12 buildings at each region with 500 racks in each. 6k racks Let's assume that S3 is 1/4 of their infrastructure. Let's assume you can put 60 * 12TB disks in 4U and they use 52 racks. That's 13 60 12TB per cabinet or 9.4PB per rack. 1500 racks at 9.4PB raw capacity with RF=2.1 so best case that's that's 1500 * 9.4 / 2.1 = 6700PB at a site. So 500PB would be…

My guess (and it's a terrible guess) is this may be about 4mo growth... and they might take the opp to retire older lower capacity drives and just keeping up the build-out. But who knows...

If you're ordering 500 petabytes you probably sign a contract with Amazon, and have to let them know in advance if you want out.

Re: Why Dropbox decided to build its own infrastructure and network

#96

Post by mc32 »

chis wrote: post #95
mc32 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess (and it's a terrible guess) is this may be about 4mo growth... and they might take the opp to retire older lower capacity drives and just keeping up the build-out. But who knows...

If you're ordering 500 petabytes you probably sign a contract with Amazon, and have to let them know in advance if you want out.

That's a good point --but they didn't start with 500PB, when they first went to AWS they probably only used a few PB to begin with and grew "organically" over the years. But likely still had some contractual stuff for this kind of scenario.

Re: Why Dropbox decided to build its own infrastructure and network

#97

Post by ryacko »

mulmen wrote: post #38
xbmcuser wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah and that's why it amazes me that Netflix uses Amazon a straight competitor that uses the money it makes from Netflix to compete with Amazon prime.

I hear this line of thinking a lot but I don't really buy it. You could just as easily say it's amazing that Amazon allows a competitor like Netflix to run on it's platform. The reality is that relationship is more complex than that.

The really amazing thing is that Nestle licensing production of Kit Kats to Hershey.

Re: Why Dropbox decided to build its own infrastructure and network

#98

Post by ramshanker »

late2part wrote: post #86
mc32 wrote: post #79

What does AWS do when someone moves 500PB of storage off of their systems? Do they sit idle till some other big customer comes along or is their growth so phenomenal that a 500PB move off doesn't even slow new (storage) deployments at all and just keep up their pace?

with no actual facts, i'll speculate. let's assume they have 12 buildings at each region with 500 racks in each. 6k racks Let's assume that S3 is 1/4 of their infrastructure. Let's assume you can put 60 * 12TB disks in 4U and they use 52 racks. That's 13 60 12TB per cabinet or 9.4PB per rack. 1500 racks at 9.4PB raw capacity with RF=2.1 so best case that's that's 1500 * 9.4 / 2.1 = 6700PB at a site. So 500PB would be…

12 TB Disks are pretty recent phenomenon, not 3 to 4 years ago when Dropbox did this exercise. Backblaze numbers are a good source. So adjusting your calculation, that should be 3 Month No-Storage-Buyout scenario.

Re: Why Dropbox decided to build its own infrastructure and network

#99

Post by kabes »

xbmcuser wrote: post #33
swampthinker wrote: post #2

I'll be 100% honest, I didn't realize Dropbox was still on AWS. You figure at a certain scale it makes more sense to run your own solution.

Yeah and that's why it amazes me that Netflix uses Amazon a straight competitor that uses the money it makes from Netflix to compete with Amazon prime.

But this happens all the time. Like Apple buying iPhone components from Samsung. The best deal is the best deal

Re: Why Dropbox decided to build its own infrastructure and network

#100

Post by xbmcuser »

xbmcuser wrote: post #33
swampthinker wrote: post #2

I'll be 100% honest, I didn't realize Dropbox was still on AWS. You figure at a certain scale it makes more sense to run your own solution.

Yeah and that's why it amazes me that Netflix uses Amazon a straight competitor that uses the money it makes from Netflix to compete with Amazon prime.

My point was that Netflix uses AWS services exclusively instead of dividing it between multiple services at least though now days they probably get really deep discounts from Amazon to stay on AWS because of competition and it probably is lot cheaper for them then building and maintaining it's their own servers.
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