This presentation was from the App Dev Conference in Santa Clara, CA on October, 27, 2011.
API programs, typically thought of as a public program to see what public developer communities can build with a company’s data, are becoming more and more critical to the success of mobile and device strategies. This presentation takes a look at Netflix’s and NPR’s strategies that lead to tremendous growth and discusses how Netflix plans to take this internal API strategy to the next level.
This is my presentation from the Business of APIs Conference in SF, held by Mashery (http://www.apiconference.com). This talk talks briefly about the history of the Netflix API, then goes into three main categories of scaling:
1. Using the cloud to scale in size and internationally
2. Using Webkit to scale application development in parallel to the flexibility afforded by the API
3. Redesigning the API to improve performance and to downscale the infrastructure as the system scales
When viewing these slides, please note that they are almost entirely image-based, so I have added notes for each slide to detail the talking points.
This presentation was original given at OSCON in July, 2011. It was my first OSCON presenting on behalf of Netflix.
The Netflix API was originally launched 3 years ago to expose Netflix metadata and services to developers and build applications. It now handles over 1 billion requests per day from over 20,000 developers and 13,000 applications. However, Netflix has undergone many business changes and the API needs to be redesigned to focus on its core streaming business and support international growth. The new design will build a scalable data distribution pipeline to deliver customized, optimized metadata and services to each streaming client and platform. It will use wrappers and response handlers to customize the response for each device and isolate problems. This will allow faster development and reduce the need for versioning across many client types and interfaces.
I was invited to Bristol, CT in May, 2011 to give this presentation to ESPN’s Digital Media team, focusing on the trajectory of the Netflix API. I also discussed Netflix’s device implementation strategy and how it enables rapid development and robust A/B testing.
Daniel Jacobson is the director of API engineering at Netflix. Prior to Netflix, Daniel was at NPR where he created the NPR API as well as the content management system that drives NPR.org, mobile platforms and all other digital presentations for NPR content. Daniel is also on the board of directors for OpenID.
Comments Off on Presentation : APIs for Internal Audiences – App Dev Conference 
Themocracy