Deploying Linux at Netflix Scale

Imagine having to upgrade 100,000 servers to install a kernel patch. In this talk, you’ll hear how the Netflix Operating System team uses automation to keep a common Linux base image up to date, and how our application teams deploy their applications on this image, always picking up the latest. We’ll talk about how we insulate developers from the operating system and tailor the upstream Linux distribution for large scale cloud deployment. We’ll also discuss best practices such as using immutable infrastructure and designing for failure to insure service availability. Netflix is a leader at going all-in with a cloud native deployment in AWS. We have loosely coupled development teams constantly deploying software who want to focus on their applications and business value. Developers deploy applications written in a variety of different languages and don’t want to think about the underlying Linux operating system, or have to know about details such as kernels, init systems, or mounting EBS storage volumes. Applications are deployed to AWS on a common Ubuntu Linux image - this image provides a predictable and common environment which largely shields developers from changes in the underlying Linux distribution. Tasks such as deploying Linux security patches are done with nearly zero effort and without downtime. We’ll also talk about some of our unsolved challenges and pain points, and where we see the future with continuing to isolate applications from the underlying operating system they run on.