• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Social Security unraveling: 7,100 workers sacked, performance metrics retired, disability claims falling

2

Erin Brockovich, the activist who defeated a utility giant and inspired a Julia Roberts film, is pushing data centers to be more transparent

3

'Where we are today is frightening': a Pulitzer-winning historian sees a doomsday scenario involving China and the national debt

1

Social Security unraveling: 7,100 workers sacked, performance metrics retired, disability claims falling

2

Erin Brockovich, the activist who defeated a utility giant and inspired a Julia Roberts film, is pushing data centers to be more transparent

3

'Where we are today is frightening': a Pulitzer-winning historian sees a doomsday scenario involving China and the national debt
TechPointCloud

New Netflix Tool Could Ease Cloud Deployment for Big Companies

Barb Darrow
By
Barb Darrow
Barb Darrow
Down Arrow Button Icon
Barb Darrow
By
Barb Darrow
Barb Darrow
Down Arrow Button Icon
November 16, 2015, 5:26 PM ET
Netflix

Netflix, the streaming video giant, is quite the cloud jockey after developing a number software tools that it uses to run applications efficiently on Amazon Web Services.

On Monday, Netflix (NFLX) added to the stable by introducing Spinnaker, which automates the roll-out of new software features and updates simultaneously on both Amazon (AMZN) Web Services and Google (GOOG) Cloud Platform. Support for Microsoft (MSFT) Azure and Pivotal, the joint cloud venture by EMC (EMC) and VMware (VMW) will follow, according to the Netflix TechBlog.

Spinnaker may be of particular interest to the many Fortune 500 companies that are weighing not just a move to a cloud, but a move to multiple clouds. Most companies have decided that this migration is inevitable for much of their data and applications although many of them remain wary of using outside resources instead of their own servers and data centers.

That is one big reason they may prefer to adopt tools from Netflix, considered to be a leader in wringing the most out of shared computing resources. It has long been one of AWS’s largest customers and makes heavy use of Amazon’s web infrastructure, reportedly even closing down the last of its own data centers last summer.

There are a couple of trends here. First is the growing adoption of public cloud, which is a massive array of shared computing, storage and networking resources. Second, more companies like banks and car companies are deploying consumer applications that require near-constant feature updates. That is a stark contrast of the old enterprise software model in which applications ran on in-house servers and PCs and got upgraded every three or four years with a patchwork of fixes in between.

But serving up new features and integrating them poses a knotty problem. Spinnaker takes on that problem of efficiently adding new features and fixes to potentially thousands of servers across cloud infrastructure. It promises to take developers’ application code and create a workflow, or a pipeline, that takes it from inception to actual deployment.

Cloud consultant MSV Janakiram said that in this world, where there are so many parts, the notion of non-stop integration and continuous deployment gets very complicated very quickly. Spinnaker, which is the successor to Netflix’s older tried-and-true Asgard deployment tool, will help both startups and large companies that build big consumer apps used by tens of thousand of people tackle this problem better, he said via email.

Spinnaker is a great resource for big companies, said Adrian Cockcroft, former cloud architect at Netflix who is now technology fellow at Battery Ventures. Netflix, he noted via email, is a big company itself that has solved many problems “you only get when you have hundreds of developers and more than 600 microservices deploying many times a day.”

Less generally, the fact that Netflix built the tool to support multiple clouds could conceivably signal that it may go with more cloud providers going forward. Netflix does already use Google for some cloud storage but as stated above it is pretty much an AWS shop.

For more coverage from Barb, follow her on Twitter @gigabarb, read her work at fortune.com/barb-darrowor subscribe via this RSS feed.

Oh, and sign up for Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter about the business of technology

 

About the Author
Barb Darrow
By Barb Darrow
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

How Bazooka’s CIO is bringing AI to the gum game and navigating candy industry headwinds
NewslettersCIO Intelligence
How Bazooka’s CIO is bringing AI to the gum game and navigating candy industry headwinds
By John KellJune 3, 2026
2 hours ago
European Union launches new tech sovereignty package to remove dependence from American and Asian AI and microchips
EuropeEurope
European Union launches new tech sovereignty package to remove dependence from American and Asian AI and microchips
By The Associated PressJune 3, 2026
2 hours ago
Nscale has raised billions to power Europe’s AI ambitions. Now the startup must prove the hype can survive reality
MagazineData
Nscale has raised billions to power Europe’s AI ambitions. Now the startup must prove the hype can survive reality
By Beatrice NolanJune 3, 2026
3 hours ago
jstina
SuccessTraining
The IBM executive tasked with retraining 30 million workers is changing how she thinks about the AI finish line
By Nick LichtenbergJune 3, 2026
3 hours ago
as
CommentaryVenture Capital
The most contrarian and durable bet in AI is 85 million moms
By Allison SternJune 3, 2026
3 hours ago
A person holding a protest sign sits with their legs crossed.
CybersecurityData
Ohio city workers are covering automated license plate readers with trash bags as officials sound the alarm on ‘egregious violations’ of privacy
By Sasha RogelbergJune 3, 2026
3 hours ago

Most Popular

Social Security unraveling: 7,100 workers sacked, performance metrics retired, disability claims falling
North America
Social Security unraveling: 7,100 workers sacked, performance metrics retired, disability claims falling
By Katie Savin, Callie Freitag, Matthew Borus and The ConversationJune 2, 2026
1 day ago
Erin Brockovich, the activist who defeated a utility giant and inspired a Julia Roberts film, is pushing data centers to be more transparent
Environment
Erin Brockovich, the activist who defeated a utility giant and inspired a Julia Roberts film, is pushing data centers to be more transparent
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJune 1, 2026
2 days ago
'Where we are today is frightening': a Pulitzer-winning historian sees a doomsday scenario involving China and the national debt
Banking
'Where we are today is frightening': a Pulitzer-winning historian sees a doomsday scenario involving China and the national debt
By Nick LichtenbergJune 2, 2026
1 day ago
Cognizant CEO says AI is remaking middle managers into player-coaches who can 'both  execute and develop others'
Newsletters
Cognizant CEO says AI is remaking middle managers into player-coaches who can 'both execute and develop others'
By Diane BradyJune 2, 2026
1 day ago
Current price of oil as of June 2, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of June 2, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJune 2, 2026
1 day ago
The Iran conflict has disrupted oil supply. Gulf states are now looking to multi-billion-dollar investments in renewables 
Energy
The Iran conflict has disrupted oil supply. Gulf states are now looking to multi-billion-dollar investments in renewables 
By Melissa HancockJune 1, 2026
2 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.