nanog mailing list archives

RE: FYI Netflix is down


From: "Dan Golding" <dgolding () ragingwire com>
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2012 13:50:34 -0700



-----Original Message-----

I imagine Netflix is mature enough to track this data as you suggest,
and that's why they use AWS - downtime isn't a big deal for their
business unless it gets really, really bad.

There is another possibility that is probably much more widespread amongst AWS (and other cloud) customers. Here is the 
scenario:

You are a small, hungry startup. No capital for servers. Cloud seems great. Then, big growth hits! Cloud seems even 
better - you may have the capital now, thanks to friendly VC/public investment/private equity, but you don't have the 
time to catch up. So, keep using cloud. 

Then, the now mid-sized company discovers one day that their use of the cloud is no longer economical, if it ever was. 
They are big enough to use a dedicated hardware in collocation or wholesale datacenter solution, with blended transit 
from some upstreams. But the cost to transition out of cloud is big, too. So, they might go with a hybrid strategy, at 
least for a few years. 

This happens all the time. Not saying Netflix is doing this, but lots of other folks are. It’s a trap that’s easy to 
fall into. Especially with rapid growth.

- Dan

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