Netflix has been evolving its use of containers over time to improve development experiences, deploy applications faster, and better manage resources. Key areas Netflix uses containers include algorithms engineering, data pipelines, and edge services. Docker provides infrastructure abstraction, polyglot support for local development, and fine-grained resource management. Challenges remain in achieving a fully "PaaS-like" development experience and optimizing resource utilization at production scale.

1. Containers at Netflix - An
Evolving Story
Sangeeta Narayanan
Engineering Manager @Netflix
@sangeetan

3. Going Global
Recent Launches: Italy, Spain, Portugal
Early 2016: Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore

4. Growing BIGGER

5. Winning Moments of Truth

7. Getting BETTER

8. Jan
Apr
Jul
O
ct
2015

9. Jan
Apr
Jul
O
ct
2015

10. Jan
Apr
Jul
O
ct
2015
A/B Tests
New features

11. Jan
Apr
Jul
O
ct
2015
A/B Tests
New features
Device Launches

12. Going FASTER

16. Cloud Native Architecture

17. Automation & Tooling

18. Culture

19. New Considerations
Diversity - Users, Tech stacks, Workloads
Dev Ex - Dev iterations, Debugging, Packaging
Rapid Delivery
Resource Sharing

24. Dev-centric packaging &
reproducibility
Infrastructure abstraction
Faster dev iterations
Resource sharing
Why Docker?

26. Docker @Netflix - Use Cases
Algorithms Engineering
Data Pipeline
Edge Engineering

27. Docker @Netflix - Use Cases
Algorithms Engineering
Data Pipeline
Edge Engineering

28. Algorithms Engineering
R&D of algorithmic components for product

30. Precompute
Online
Services
Model Trainer
New data available

31. Infrastructure abstraction
Polyglot support & Local Dev Ex
Dynamic resource allocation &
distributed job scheduling
Requirements

32. Model Trainer Online
Services
Precompute
New data available
Distributed scheduler
+

33. Distributed Scheduling & Task Management
Model Trainer Spinnaker Other Apps
Fenzo

34. Infrastructure abstraction
Polyglot + Local Dev
Distributed Scheduling
Num of Containers

35. Docker @Netflix - Use Cases
Algorithms Engineering
Data Pipeline
Edge Engineering

36. Data Pipeline
Publish, Collect, Process, Move Data

39. Local Dev Ex
Infrastructure abstraction
Fine-grained resource management
Requirements

40. Job

41. Infrastructure abstraction
Local Dev Ex
Fine grained resource Management
Num of Containers
(~10K steady state)

42. Docker @Netflix - Use Cases
Algorithms Engineering
Data Pipeline
Edge Engineering

43. Edge Engineering
Entry point to Netflix for all device traffic

44. Automation & Tools

45. Automation & Tools
Node.js
Html,
JS

46. Infrastructure abstraction
Local dev, Polyglot - Java, Groovy,
Node.js
Fine-grained resource
management
Requirements

47. Ops Tooling
Networking, IPC
Security
Insights
Failure Testing
Performance
And more…
Requirements++
Long running Services
vs.
Batch Jobs

48. Ops Tooling
Networking, IPC
Security
Insights
Failure Testing
Performance
And more…
Requirements++
Long running Services
vs.
Batch Jobs

50. Local Dev
Test/
Debug
Open PR
CI
Build/Test
AMI
Bakery
Deploy
Spinnaker
Dist Job
Sched

54. Gradle docker plugin to generate Dockerfile
Spinnaker CloudProvider provides abstraction
Bakery support for image generation
Docker registry for internal images
libnetwork plugin for addressable IP
Building out the pieces

55. Dev Ex Wins
Faster dev iterations
Run prod image locally; attach debugger
Multiple branch/config variations
Hot reloading of files
‘Roman Riding’ with AMIs

56. ONNot There Yet!

57. ‘PaaS-like' Dev Experience
Production scale/Operational readiness
Optimized resource utilization

58. Infrastructure Abstraction
Dev Ex
Production ready Online Services
Polyglot env, Packaging

59. YMMV

60. Thank You
@sangeetan

61. The Netflix Algorithms Engineering & Data Pipeline
teams
Acknowledgements
Photo Credits
https://goo.gl/sP5T4X
https://goo.gl/JaNlyf
https://goo.gl/rZXws1
http://goo.gl/V4UFmR
https://goo.gl/R08GPQ
http://tastyk.deviantart.com/art/Evolution-149719618
https://goo.gl/W2UKv0
https://goo.gl/fRcpPN
https://goo.gl/tF199H
https://goo.gl/K1OH9T wildflowers
https://goo.gl/KSaL5s roadmap
https://goo.gl/8JCDQy odometer
https://goo.gl/c4RuSR takeaway box