Abstract

The case “Netflix Migrates to the Public Cloud for Seamless Streaming” talks about the migration of US-based Internet streaming company Netflix Inc. (Netflix)’s streaming services to the public cloud system through Amazon Web Services (AWS) owned by Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon). The case starts out by mentioning the problems Netflix faced with regard to data storage and data scalability, given its growing business needs. The case then documents how Netflix migrated to AWS by undertaking business process re-engineering, bringing about a sea change in its IT infrastructure and database systems, and designing some proprietary cloud-based systems. It then goes on to provide information about the benefits gained by Netflix after migrating to AWS. Though some analysts wondered whether Netflix would be ready for any failure of AWS in future, Netflix’s Vice President, Cloud and Platform Engineering, Yury Izrailevsky (Izrailevsky), was confident about the Netflix’s data security future on the public cloud.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the importance of organizational readiness to update technology according to changing trends
• Understand the kind of information technology infrastructure that companies need to put in place to create intricate databases of their data.
• Appreciate the processes/ mechanisms that need to be re-engineered in the IT infrastructure of a company while it is migrating to public cloud platforms.
• Analyze the challenges that organizations have to confront when they deploy data tools.
• Realize the advantages that organizations can derive from employing public cloud services.

Keywords

Technology in Entertainment; Advancements in Information Systems; Data Systems; Data Management; Cloud Computing; Database Approach; Databases in the Cloud; Data Security; Role of Data Management in Information Technology; and Cloud-based ERP; Public Cloud; Streaming Services; Entertainment; Relational Databases; SQL