Netflix Strategies for Streaming

What are the gimmicks used by Netflix for streaming a video?

This article is a sequel of my previous article. Please bear with me, as this article is going to be a little longer one.😉

Ever wondered the game plan of Netflix to stream a video? I took an avid interest in figuring out. Netflix has tried three different video streaming strategies: its own small CDN, third-party CDN’s, and Open Connect.

Let’s start by defining CDN. A CDN is a content distribution network. Content for Netflix — is of course — the video files we discussed in the previous section.

Distribution means video files are copied from a central location, over a network and stored on computers located all over the world.For Netflix, the central location where videos are stored is S3.

Why build a CDN?

The idea behind a CDN is simple: put video as close as possible to users by spreading computers throughout the world. When a user wants to watch a video, find the nearest computer with the video on it and stream to the device from there.

The biggest benefits of a CDN are speed and reliability.

Each location with a computer storing video content is called a PoP or Point of Presence. Each PoP is a physical location that provides access to…