Netflix: 'Arrested Development' Won't Crash Our Service 127
Nerval's Lobster writes "No, the latest season of 'Arrested Development' won't fatally crash Netflix, despite comedian David Cross's tongue-in-cheek comment that the series will melt down the company's servers on its first weekend of streaming availability. 'No one piece of content can have that kind of impact given the size of what we are serving up at any given time,' a spokesperson wrote in an email to Slashdot. Although 'Arrested Development' struggled to survive during its three seasons on Fox (from 2003 to 2006), the series has built a significant cult following in the years following its cancellation. Netflix commissioned a fourth season as part of a broader plan to augment its streaming service with exclusive content, and will release all 13 new episodes at once on May 26. Like Facebook, Google, and other Internet giants, Netflix has invested quite a bit in physical infrastructure and engineers. It stores its data on Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3), which offers a significant degree of durability and scalability; it also relies on Amazon's Elastic MapReduce (EMR) distribution of Apache Hadoop, along with tools within the Hadoop ecosystem such as Hive and Pig. That sort of backend can allow the company to handle much more than 13 seasons' worth of Bluths binged over one weekend — but that doesn't mean its streaming service is immune from the occasional high-profile failure."
Re:Let's not kid ourselves here (Score:5, Insightful)
Most American TV viewers watch Idol and Dancing with the stars, so we can ignore their judgement as a baseline for what is good.
I am pretty excited about this, I never watched the show on TV, but found it on Netflix and loved it. Netflix has recently been doing a great job creating content so I am pretty hopeful. I am really looking forward to next season of House of Cards.
Re:isn't the content streamed via CDN? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Netflix has Open Connect CDN [netflix.com] to help serve up content to the users at individual ISPs. As I recall, they give away server appliances [netflix.com] that hold a bit over a hundred TB of video to the ISPs, who then host it at their own expense at a peering facility they share with Netflix. One appliance is roughly capable of covering 70-90% of the content requests, according to some of the other documentation.
Re:Free Advertisement (Score:5, Insightful)
It's news to me that Netflix can pick up new seasons of canceled shows. That's great news for shows that do better on DVD than on the air.
Re: Let's not kid ourselves here (Score:5, Insightful)
One of my good friends refuses to even consider watching big bang theory, he calls it "black-face for nerds."
You know, that's a pretty good description. The show is full of the most ridiculous over-acting with one-dimensional (if that) characters with obnoxious voices and idiotic plotlines. I actually was looking forward to a sciency-type sitcom, but was disappointed to see it was the same traditional dross, only with "nerdy" characters. I put "nerdy" in quotes because they seemed more like socially maladjusted outcasts than nerds.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the new Arrested Development. I'm both pleased and displeased all the episodes will be released at once. I like being able to watch them without waiting a week between each airing, but the suspension is nice to savor it, and I know I won't have the self-control to make it last more than at most a week.
That said, I'm also a little worried about it. I was one of those who didn't like the new Futurama episodes (not even The Late Philip J. Fry, as it was quite depressing, even if touching), and I worry that with the actors being so much older now, some of the flair of the original show will be lost.
Re:You mean like last Christmas? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't have my entertainment 24/7. WAAAAAA!!!!! WAAAAAAA!!!! What a jerk you are. More people will die today from lack of food than you'll ever know in your life and you have your panties in a bunch over a single outlet of the dozens you have to choose from for instant entertainment being down for one friggin night? What a pig.
What a jerk you are. More people will die today from lack of food than you'll ever know in your life and you have your panties in a bunch over a single guy complaining about entertainment options?
What a pig.