Arstechnica posts on a presentation by Netflix’s David Fullagar director of content delivery architecture.
There are cool details like the staff.
The network team
Netflix’s Open Connect division has about 40 people, Fullagar said. About 20 are software engineers who either build software for Netflix servers or work on the company's management software, which runs on Amazon’s cloud network and performs functions such as load balancing. Another 10 Open Connect employees are network architects, and another 10 are in operations.
There are two types of hardware used.
Netflix stores video on two types of boxes that it designed, one that’s heavy on HDDs and another that’s all SSDs. Netflix built them in part because it couldn’t find the right mix of compute and storage capabilities in products from hardware vendors.
The HDD unit is a 4U-sized chassis that holds 216TB on 36 drives of 6TB each. It has 64GB RAM, a 10 Gigabit NIC, and some SSD for frequently accessed content.
The smaller, 1U, SSD-only unit contains 14 drives of a terabyte each, 256GB of RAM and a 40 Gigabit NIC. About 75 percent of the cost of both the HDD and SSD boxes is taken up by storage. Each unit uses Intel CPUs.
How many are there?
Netflix stores video on two types of boxes that it designed, one that’s heavy on HDDs and another that’s all SSDs. Netflix built them in part because it couldn’t find the right mix of compute and storage capabilities in products from hardware vendors.
The HDD unit is a 4U-sized chassis that holds 216TB on 36 drives of 6TB each. It has 64GB RAM, a 10 Gigabit NIC, and some SSD for frequently accessed content.
The smaller, 1U, SSD-only unit contains 14 drives of a terabyte each, 256GB of RAM and a 40 Gigabit NIC. About 75 percent of the cost of both the HDD and SSD boxes is taken up by storage. Each unit uses Intel CPUs.
If you didn’t make it to the NY event, it looks like the presentation in repeated for the Uptime Symposium attendees.
Designing Netflix's Content Delivery System
Presenter: David Fullagar, Director of Content Delivery Architecture, Netflix
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
2:35 - 3:05 p.m.
The way people consume video-based content has changed dramatically over recent years. At the forefront of this evolution is Netflix, today's undisputed video-streaming service leader. Due to the personalization of on-demand video delivery service, no two subscribers watch the same content at exactly the same time. Now bits and bytes of this digital content must be ready for delivery on-demand to more than 44 million Netflix customers, placing incredible pressure on the content delivery infrastructure.
To tackle this challenge, David Fullagar, Director of Content Delivery Architecture at Netflix and his team, have custom designed the content delivery network (CDN)—Open Connect. During this presentation, Mr. Fullagar will share the Open Connect hardware design and the open source software components of the server that support these massive streaming demands. These cost-efficient designs are suitable for any high-volume provider of large media files to enable faster, cheaper Internet for all.