Netflix moves to Amazon cloud

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

In a move that signals businesses' growing confidence in the cloud as a secure and reliable IT solution, on-demand video provider Netflix has reportedly decided to send its mission-critical website to Amazon's cloud computing service.

According to a recent Investor's Business Daily report, the decision to deploy Amazon Web Services followed an embarrassing database corruption incident that led to a DVD shipping failure. By using the cloud, however, Netflix found it is afforded greater database flexibility and scalability and has the capacity to deal with higher levels of traffic, therefore mitigating future failures.

Through Amazon Web Services, Netflix is able to rely on the cloud services provider to handle it streaming delivery systems, as well as digital content delivery, according to the report.

Additionally, Netflix vice president Kevin McEntee said Amazon Web Services provides greater bandwidth availability. This is important, as Netflix can account for nearly 20 percent of U.S. internet traffic between the hours of 8 and 10 p.m., according to figures from Sandvine.

Many businesses have been hesitant to deploy cloud computing services, due to reservations about the security of the new technology. However, confidence in the cloud is growing, and Gartner predicts cloud-based revenue will reach $148.8 billion by 2014.