Hulu serves more than 40 million Subscribers with a platform backed by Apache Cassandra
Hulu is a popular streaming service that provides on-demand video content to its users. To ensure that their platform can handle large volumes of data and user traffic, Hulu uses Apache Cassandra as one of its primary data storage solutions.
Apache Cassandra is a distributed database that provides high scalability, fault tolerance, and performance. Hulu uses Cassandra for a variety of use cases:
- User profile management: Cassandra is used to store user profiles, which includes personal information, preferences, and viewing history. This allows Hulu to provide personalized recommendations to users based on their interests and viewing behavior.
- Content metadata storage: Cassandra is used to store metadata related to the videos available on Hulu, such as title, description, genre, and cast. This allows users to search and discover new content easily.
- Session management: Cassandra is used to store session data related to user interactions with the Hulu platform. This allows Hulu to provide a seamless experience for users, such as allowing them to resume watching a video from where they left off.
- Video analytics: Cassandra is used to store data related to video performance, such as the number of views, likes, and shares. This data is used to make decisions related to content acquisition and marketing.
- Operational data store: Cassandra is used to store operational data related to the Hulu platform, such as system logs, error messages, and performance metrics. This data is used for troubleshooting and optimizing the platform’s performance.
One of the main advantages of using Cassandra is its ability to handle large volumes of data across multiple geographic regions. Hulu’s platform generates a massive amount of data every day, including user interactions, video metadata, and system logs. Cassandra’s distributed architecture allows Hulu to store this data across multiple nodes and scale their storage capacity as their platform grows.
Additionally, Cassandra provides fast read and write operations, which is critical for a streaming service like Hulu that requires low latency and high throughput to deliver a seamless user experience. With Cassandra, Hulu can quickly retrieve user data and deliver personalized recommendations and content to their users.
Overall, Hulu’s use of Apache Cassandra demonstrates how distributed databases can provide the scalability and performance required to handle large volumes of data in real-time applications. Cassandra plays a critical role in supporting Hulu’s streaming service by providing scalable, fault-tolerant, and high-performance data storage for various use cases.