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At the recent EuroBSD 2021 event, Netflix, the online streaming service, shared specific details about their global movie-watching server infrastructure. Previously, Netflix servers reached a bandwidth milestone of 200 Gbps for TLS-Encrypted data transmission by 2020. Since 2019, they explored the possibility of transitioning to AMD's Epic server CPU platform and have now officially made the switch. The data bandwidth generated by AMD Epyc not only doubles but also reduces overall ownership and operational costs, surpassing solutions from Intel or Ampere.In Netflix's latest server systems, they integrate second-gen Rome architecture Epyc CPUs, specifically the 7502P 32-core 64-thread variant with 128MB L3 cache and a 180W TDP. AMD Epyc outperforms Intel server CPUs with 128 PCIe Gen 4 lanes, creating approximately 250 GB/s I/O bandwidth and a 2 Tbps network bandwidth. This chip is priced around $4,300. Other hardware in each Netflix server cluster includes two Mellanox ConnectX-6 Dx network switches with a speed of 100 GbE, and each server unit is equipped with 18 WD SN720 NVMe SSDs, each boasting a 2TB memory, totaling 36TB per node.
Netflix states that by utilizing Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA), specifically configuring 4-NUMA, they can achieve a bandwidth of around 280 Gbps. To further enhance bandwidth, data in and out of the CPU can also be offloaded to the Network Interface Card (NIC) to achieve speeds of 380 Gbps during TLS-encoded video data transmission. With this solution, CPU optimization reaches approximately 50%, resulting in power savings.Compared to solutions from Intel and Ampere, Netflix considers servers equipped with AMD Epyc CPUs as the most suitable option due to issues related to PCIe connectivity and lower memory bandwidth in the products of the other two brands. Netflix compares AMD Epyc 7502P with Ampere Q80-30 (80-core ARM Neoverse CPU, 256GB DDR4-3200, 128 PCIe Gen 4 lanes) and Intel Ice Lake 8532V (32-core, 256 GB DDR3-3200, 64 PCIe Gen 4 lanes). The server bandwidth with Ampere's CPU is 320 Gbps, while Intel's is only 230 Gbps.Netflix plans to deploy server systems with 800 Gbps bandwidth in the future, with trial versions expected to be operational later this year. Their research findings may be unveiled at the EuroBSD event next year. This high-speed server cluster could potentially utilize AMD Epyc CPUs based on the Milan or Genoa architecture.According to WCCFTech
