Netflix is “not shifting to a multi-cloud strategy” even as it conducted some small-scale experimentation with Google Cloud, a company spokesperson told AndroidHeadlines. Despite one recent report suggesting the firm is embracing Google’s offerings in a more comprehensive manner — which Netflix also promptly denied — the entertainment juggernaut remains committed to its “comprehensive relationship with Amazon Web Services.”
The appeal of multi-cloud strategies is presently growing stronger across numerous industries but not every major player is on board with such an approach yet, as seen in the example of Netflix. “Leveraging multiple cloud providers not only increases stability and flexibility, but also just makes good business sense,” DivvyCloud co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Brian Johnson told AndroidHeadlines in an emailed statement, having suggested Netflix’s experimentation with Google Cloud may be a result of the video giant “beginning to see Amazon as a competitor.” The company is dismissive of that notion and says it views AWS as an independent entity, claiming its relationship with Amazon’s cloud unit isn’t affecting their competing video businesses in any capacity. Even if that was the case, a multi-cloud strategy involving Google Cloud wouldn’t necessarily solve the hypothetical issue seeing how Google’s YouTube is also competing with Netflix on the video front, at least as far as the latter is concerned.
Many firms are still seeing multi-cloud as the future and have already started adopting such technologies in a bid to make their online apps and services more consistent and possibly even more affordable to manage, hence the rise of cloud management companies such as DivvyCloud. “Those who remain needlessly loyal to single cloud providers will ultimately pay a hefty price as their competitors will be able to dramatically reduce operational spend through better-negotiated infrastructure prices,” Mr. Johnson believes, pointing to technologies like Google’s Kubernetes and Docker as solutions that will likely lead to a fully multi-cloud future wherein no single app is reliant on just one provider. Despite the growing hype, Netflix isn’t embracing such an approach on any significant scale for the time being, having clarified that its recently reported Google Cloud trials only revolved around limited “disaster-recovery data and some experimental technologies.” Though the multi-cloud movement is growing stronger and may benefit from solutions such as the aforementioned tools for virtualization and automation, even the majority of its proponents are quick to point out that on a fundamental level, multi-cloud isn’t a technology but a strategy and must be approached with a long-term vision.