From streaming to studio: The evolution of Node.js at Netflix
As platforms grow, so do their needs. However, the core infrastructure is often not designed to handle these new challenges as it was optimized for a relatively simple task.
From streaming to studio: The evolution of Node.js at Netflix
As platforms grow, so do their needs. However, the core infrastructure is often not designed to handle these new challenges as it was optimized for a relatively simple task. Netflix, a member of theOpenJS Foundation, had to overcome this challenge as it evolved from a massive web streaming service to a content production platform. Guilherme Hermeto, Senior Platform Engineer at Netflix, spearheaded efforts to restructure the Netflix Node.js infrastructure to handle new functions while preserving the stability of the application. In his talk below, he walks through his work and provides resources and tips for developers encountering similar problems.
Netflix initially used Node.js to enable high volume web streaming to over 182 million subscribers. Their three goals with this early infrastructure was to provide observability (metrics), debuggability (diagnostic tools) and availability (service registration). The result was the NodeQuark infrastructure. An application gateway authenticates and routes requests to the NodeQuark service, which then communicates with APIs and formats responses that are sent back to the client. With NodeQuark, Netflix also created a managed experience — teams could create custom API experiences for specific devices. This allows the Netflix app to run seamlessly on different devices.
Beyond streaming
However, Netflix wanted to move beyond web streaming and into content production. This posed several challenges to the NodeQuark infrastructure and the development team. Web streaming requires relatively few applications, but serves a huge user base. On the other hand, a content production platform houses a large number of applications that serve a limited userbase. Furthermore, a content production app must have multiple levels of security for employees, partners and users. An additional issue is that development for content production is ideally fast paced while platform releases are slow, iterative processes intended to ensure application stability. Grouping these two processes together seems difficult, but the alternative is to spend unnecessary time and effort building a completely separate infrastructure.
Hermeto decided that in order to solve Netflix’s problems, he would need to use self-contained modules. In other words, plugins! By transitioning to plugins, the Netflix team was able to separate the infrastructure’s functions while still retaining the ability to reuse code shared between web streaming and content production. Hermeto then took plugin architecture to the next step by creating application profiles. The application profile is simply a list of plugins required by an application. The profile reads in these specific plugins and then exports a loaded array. Therefore, the risk of a plugin built for content production breaking the streaming application was reduced. Additionally, by sectioning code out into smaller pieces, the Netflix team was able to remove moving parts from the core system, improving stability.
Looking ahead
In the future, Hermeto wants to allow teams to create specific application profiles that they can give to customers. Additionally, Netflix may be able to switch from application versions to application profiles as the code breaks into smaller and smaller pieces.
To finish his talk, Hermeto gave his personal recommendations for open source projects that are useful for observability and debuggability. Essentially, a starting point for building out your own production-level application!
Here are the companies using Node.js: Netflix, NASA, Trello, PayPal, LinkedIn, Walmart, Uber, Twitter, Yahoo, eBay, GoDaddy, and got much better results.
This approach is particularly useful for handling large files, network data, or real-time data sources. NodeJS provides a powerful set of streaming APIs that allow developers to efficiently handle streaming data.
The Node. js Foundation was created in 2015 as a Linux Foundation project to accelerate the development of the Node.js platform. The Node. js Foundation operated under an open-governance model to heighten participation amongst vendors, developers, and the general Node.
Node.js 16 reached official end of life on September 11, 2023. On August 15th 2023, Node. js 14 will be disabled in the Project Settings and existing Projects that have Node.
What Programming Language does Netflix use? Netflix uses Python programming language in a majority of its tasks but everything cannot be done using a single language. There are many other languages used by Netflix to facilitate different tasks. Netflix uses Java and Scala to implement many of its backend tasks.
Node. js doesn't support multi-threaded programming yet. It is able to serve way more complicated applications than Ruby, but it's not suitable for performing long-running calculations. Heavy computations block the incoming requests, which can lead to decrease of performance .
We have selected the top 5 Node. js competitors — Python, ASP.NET Core, Java, Ruby on Rails, and Deno. They are different in terms of features, cost, and scale. For example, Python has existed since 1991 and today is #3 in the 2023 list of most popular programming languages.
Highest salary that a Node JS Developer can earn is ₹12.6 Lakhs per year (₹1.1L per month). How does Node JS Developer Salary in India change with experience? An Entry Level Node JS Developer with less than three years of experience earns an average salary of ₹5.6 Lakhs per year.
js Foundation case study, NASA decided to migrate to Node.js and here's what it helped them to achieve: “The system he is creating uses a microservices architecture with separate APIs and applications built in Node.
Node. js made its way into space as the technology for displaying data on screens in SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. So we can confidently say that it's space-ready! Plus, the official Node.
js development services in the United States are booming across industries as Node. js frameworks are the first preference for web development. The table below demonstrates the developers who have worked with other frameworks and want to work with the Node. js framework again and those who have worked with Node.
While Node. js is primarily known as a backend technology, it can also be used in the front-end development process. In fact, Node. js has gained popularity as a full-stack technology because of its versatility in handling both client-side and server-side tasks.
What makes NodeJS so fast? Node. js uses V8 which provides just-in-time compilation. Its Non-blocking I/O architecture allows it to handle concurrent requests effectively without obstructing other processes is the primary reason that makes NodeJS fast and scalable.
Both the browser and Node.js use JavaScript as their programming language. Building apps that run in the browser is completely different from building a Node.js application. Despite the fact that it's always JavaScript, there are some key differences that make the experience radically different.
js popularity has been growing since it was introduced back in 2009. Actually, Node.js development has become prevalent over the last few years. In 2024, startups worldwide prefer it to other available options.
Of the companies that use Node. js, Uber was one of the first to use the framework to its fullest extent by building the bulk of the Uber platform in Node.js. There are three main reasons why Uber chose Node.
Introduction: My name is Allyn Kozey, I am a outstanding, colorful, adventurous, encouraging, zealous, tender, helpful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
