Open Connect Everywhere: A Glimpse at the Internet Ecosystem through the Lens of the Netflix CDN

Netflix has become a worldwide video-streaming platform and the source of a large amount of the Internet traffic. It has achieved this without building its own datacentres, by controlling a network of servers deployed at Internet eXchange Points (IXPs) and within Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Despite its wide success and novel approach to infrastructure deployment, we have little understanding of its deployments and operations. Through extensive measurements, we reveal Netflix’s footprint, its traffic patterns and volumes. Our analysis of Netflix’s server deployment exposes the diversity of the Internet ecosystem world-wide. Our findings also suggest that the specifics of each regional ecosystem, coupled with the demand of each local market, explain the different deployment strategies.