• Cory von Wallenstein 2:03 pm on June 14, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cloud, gslb,   

    Takeaways from Netflix in the Cloud at Velocity 2011 

    Adrian Cockcroft (@adrianco) from @Netflix just gave a killer presentation at #velocityconf on their usage of the cloud in powering unprecedented growth in their business and the demands of their global infrastructure.

    To start off, you should know that Netflix is ~100% in the cloud.

    A couple key takeaways:

    Can You Build Datacenters Fast Enough?

    @adrianco led with a pretty interesting problem they faced: they could not build datacenters fast enough for their growth. Hence the “fire burning down the datacenter” slide:

    Their growth was 69% year over year, and was showing no signs of stopping. They simply could not build facilities fast enough. Not just for the serving of content (which is admittedly static… they’re just giant video files retrieved via HTTP GET), but for the re-encoding of the entire Netflix library every time a new device or platform joined the family.

    Remember when Netflix came to the Wii? The entire Netflix collection of video had to be re-encoded. Same thing for the iPad, and every other platform that now offers Netflix streaming for. They scaled out thousands of servers on-demand to meet this need.

    A Global Infrastructure Footprint

    New growth for Netflix is largely international, and they have an ambitious plan in place to capture that global demand for streaming video. Accordingly, they’re leveraging Amazon’s global footprint to put their infrastructure close to where their users are in the world. It’s a smart architectural play that increase performance for end-users and decreases the risk of downtime.

    Most of their new infrastructure will be deployed internationally, and they’re prepared and ready. When Amazon launched EC2 services in Japan, they had support in their tools for the new location and ready for production duty the next day. What was the longest delay? According to Adrian, “we had to find an icon to represent Japan in the tools!”.

    The Goals of Netflix in the Cloud

    Faster, Scalable, Available, Productive. Now those are goals we can all get on board with.

    What’s Next for Netflix in the Cloud?

    More international expansion, a larger global footprint, and pushing toward global cloud standards and commoditization of cloud computing.

    Here are the full slides:

    Netflix Velocity Conference 2011

    Overall, an outstanding kicked to #velocityconf. Well done @adrianco!

     

  • Cory von Wallenstein 10:35 pm on June 1, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: backpack, laptop, macbook   

    Best Backpack for 13″ MacBook Pro 

    I’m very picky when it comes to backpacks. Perhaps to a fault. I need the right balance of size, weight, number of pockets, and easy of access.

    For several years now, I’ve been perfectly happy with an Outdoor Products brand bag that has held up well. Even chose to sew a few pieces back together when they got damaged rather than buy a new bag.

    But this past week, a strap gave way, sending my precious 13″ MacBook Pro on a 4 ft’ freefall from my shoulder to the concrete floor of the garage. Even in failure, the bag held up; no damage to the laptop.

    When it came time for a new bag, I searched and searched and searched, and decided to go with my gut. Another Outdoor Products bag. The best backpack for a 13″ MacBook Pro.

    What’s shocking is how little information is available online about this bag. It comes with a wonderful feature pamphlet, but you would have to see the bag in a store to read it.



    Available on Amazon.com for $70.33 and free shipping!

     

  • Cory von Wallenstein 9:44 am on May 16, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: find a tenant, landlord, marketing, rental   

    How To Rent a Property in Eight Weeks for $42.50 

    After many years of commuting from Hopedale, MA to @DynInc in Manchester, NH, we were finally able to make a move up North. The commute went from 1 hour and 15 minutes down to under 20 minutes, and has been a most welcomed change.

    When we made the decision to move back in December 2010, we decided to try our hand at renting out our 3 bedroom townhouse. Our goal? Find a tenant by May. Man did we overachieve.

    We had our tenant moved in by March 2011. Our rental property was only vacant for 2.5 weeks. How’d we do it? Quite simply really… by figuring out what was the problem with nearly all apartment and rental listings as-is:

    They didn’t help you envision what it would be like to call a place home.

    Our solution? Hop over to http://DynDNS.com, register a domain, fire up an instance of WordPress running on a server in the basement, and launch http://liveinlaurelwood.com dedicated to helping you envision what it would be like in your new home.

    Based on our experience, here are the 4 lessons learned in renting out a property as first-time landlords.

    Lesson One: Be Different

    We chose to be different. We didn’t list the townhouse on a rentals web site; we dedicated an entire web site to the single townhouse.

    This really made us stand out from the rest. Where others were trying to cram a whole description into two sentences in the newspaper and then hope for a phone call, we told everyone to visit the site, peruse around, and let us know if they wanted to see more in person.

    Lesson Two: Photos, Photos, Photos

    Every rental listing I looked at had the same old boring, over-hyped description with a single photo of a generic looking apartment. How are you supposed to decide whether or not that’s the place for you?

    To help our prospective tenants, we uploaded 72 photos to the site, showing the whole property (inside and out) in beautiful detail. In the end, our tenant said she chose our property because of the photos, and how well they helped her imagine what life would be like living there.

    Lesson Three: Promote, Promote, Promote

    We promoted in three main ways:

    1. A flyer hung up in the post office of the development (not to mention local pizza shops)
    2. A Craigslist rental posting pointing users to the web site
    3. Leveraging our networks via Facebook and Twitter

    The flyers were a big hit. We went through six sheets in the post office alone.

    Pro-tip: When using flyers with tear-away tabs, always tear away one of the tabs before you hang up the sheet. People have a hesitance to be the “first” one to tear off a tab from a fresh sheet, but seeing one already removed provides social proof that it’s OK to remove a tab.

    Ultimately, it was our Craigslist posting that drove our tenant to the site, but we did get quite a few hits from other sources:

    Lesson Four: Do Not Print Pricing

    Being first time landlords, we weren’t really sure where to price the unit. To give us maximum flexibility, we didn’t print a rental price anywhere, and only discussed pricing one-on-one over the phone or via email with prospective tenants. In the end, we came to a fair negotiation on price that worked well for both parties!

    Summing It Up

    We launched the site in mid-January, and had a tenant moved in by early March.

    Total time? Eight weeks, with only 2.5 of those weeks with the townhouse empty after we moved out.

    Total cost? $27.50 for Custom DNS on http://DynDNS.com, and $15 for the domain registration on http://DynDNS.com as well. We already had the server in the basement for hosting WordPress, as well as the printing supplies, bringing our total out of pocket marketing expenses to $42.50.

    Happy renting!

     

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