The abbreviation " VPN " has slowly become established among average Internet users, which is certainly good, but the problem is that people have started to see VPN as the ultimate solution to all problems.
According to measurements from the second quarter of 2017, Netflix has 103.95 million subscribed users worldwide - is it small? Of that, 51.92 million users are from the USA. During peak traffic, Netflix generates a third of all incoming traffic in the United States. How does Netflix provide all of these users with high-definition video content at all times without traffic congestion and image "braking"?
No, of course, they do not send all the content from one server, ie server farms, but use other solutions. You guessed it, it's Content Delivery Network Technology (CDN).
CDN is a network of servers deployed around the world and Netflix stores copies of its videos on those servers. For example: if a user from France wants to watch a video, he will not be sent video content from the USA but from the nearest CDN server, say from Germany, or France if the server exists there.
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| How CDN works / Source: KeyCDN |
In this way, traffic congestion is prevented, ie. link, on the server and also increases reliability. Because if all the content was delivered from one server and an error occurred that caused the link to be terminated, no one in the world would have access to Netflix videos. In addition, each CDN server has its own backup server, so even if an error occurs on the original, a spare comes to the rescue. In addition, there is still a lot of protection, and if an error occurs that the entire CDN location does not work, the user will be redirected to the next nearest server.
However, Netflix is so big that even some more advanced CDNs aren’t enough so they had to go a step further. Namely, they cooperate directly with some Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which allows them to install their hardware directly. These devices are called the Open Connected Appliance and each stores about 280 terabytes of video, which is almost the entire Netflix video database.
For the end-user, this is a huge advantage and improvement. First, the user no longer has to connect to a remote CDN server (in a neighboring city or state) but can direct to an installed Netflix device located at his ISP - which is much closer and faster. And secondly, the Netflix device is with the ISP itself, video content does not stifle the internet traffic that takes place from the ISP to the world, and vice versa. In simple words: while watching your favorite movie in Full HD format on Netflix, the internet will work without interference and slowdowns.
But Netflix often releases new video content, so they need to update the video library on their ISP devices. They usually do this early in the morning (local time) when internet traffic is much lower.
Each of the devices is equipped with an internet link at a speed of 90 gigabits per second, which means that as many as 13,000 users can watch HD footage at the same time! And if that's not enough, Netflix can simply add new devices where needed.
To maintain the stability and speed of the system, only video content is stored on these devices. For all other content, such as sites, user data, payment systems, and search systems..., Amazon Web Services (AWS) is used. It is a massive cloud storage and processing system offered by Amazon and has flexible plans, so it is possible to easily "on the go" to purchase and increase server capacity as needed.
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