Netflix uses lots of cloud services

Netflix's streaming-video entertainment via the Internet has become so popular it now represents nearly a third of peak downstream traffic in North America. It as well represents an IT support challenge for Netflix, which is trying to balance use of cloud services with traditional internal IT and data centers.

To meet its internal business needs, Netflix uses several cloud services, including Google Enterprise Docs, Workday for human resources and payroll, and even offers every employee an individual account at cloud-storage provider Box.

In fact, Netflix uses so many cloud-based services, including for its developers in the engineering-rich Netflix work environment, that the company's director of cloud systems architecture, Adrian Cockcroft, stirred up debate last week when he blogged about it, calling it "NoOps."

But the "NoOps" idea seems to imply there's no need whatsoever for internally maintained computing or that cloud services are so automated, there's no need for an operations staff all at, says Kail. "There will always be an operations layer," he says.

In this environment where both cloud services and internal data center resources need to be managed, a main piece of the security puzzle is finding a way to unify authentication. Netflix last January started using the cloud-based single sign-on service from OneLogIn for this so that there can be centralized provisioning and de-provisioning of cloud- and on-premises computing and network resources.