Netflix Completes Transition to Cloud Computing for Video Streaming Business

Cloud computing is widely accepted as the data storage solution of the future, and one of the biggest media streaming companies on the planet recently made a notable shift towards this growing technology.

According to Fortune, online streaming giant Netflix has finally completed its seven-year migration to the cloud. The vast majority of the company’s off-site cloud storage will be through Amazon Web Services.

As part of the move, Netflix’s video streaming resources will be held in Amazon’s cloud storage facilities, while its DVD business will still be managed through an on-site data center.

“We rely on the cloud for all of our scalable computing and storage needs — our business logic, distributed databases and big data processing/analytics, recommendations, transcoding, and hundreds of other functions that make up the Netflix application,” the company said in a blog post on its website.

Public cloud services, of which Amazon is considered to be the most prominent, have become increasingly popular as companies look for ways to spend less money on data storage. Amazon can sell or lease these storage resources on an as-needed basis, and companies of all sizes have begun taking advantage of these services.

In other small business news, energy use among U.S. data centers grew 36% from 2005 to 2010, which equates to a considerable expense for global companies like Netflix. By relocating its streaming video business to cloud storage, Netflix will now have more time to focus on its core business operations.

According to ZDNet.com, the addition of Netflix wasn’t Amazon’s only recent power move in the world of cloud computing.

Amazon has officially acquired Italian software company NICE, which helps customers optimize their computing resources through mobile devices. Seen as a budding venture, NICE’s future looks even more promising now that it is being backed by Amazon.

The future of Netflix is also brighter, now that it has committed to cloud computing. As of January, the video streaming service serves 130 countries, and industry experts expect that number to grow even higher in the coming months.