Data centers are really expensive to build, and even more so to maintain, which is why most companies find it difficult to justify operating their own data centers. Companies like Facebook and Google operate on an inconceivably massive scale, so it makes sense for them to operate their own data centers, but few other companies can say the same. Even Netflix was too small to justify operating its own data centers, and ended up adopting Amazon’s cloud platform instead. Now Spotify is doing the same thing, but instead of using Amazon’s cloud services, the company announced on Tuesday that it’s going to be using Google’s cloud services.
Spotify is moving the “guts” of its service from its own data centres to Google’s cloud platform, the two companies have announced. The move, which will see Spotify end an ambitious attempt to build its own vast server farm servers, will allow the company to bring new features quicker than if it is using its own data centres. “Historically we’ve run our own data centres,” Nicholas Harteau, VP of engineering and infrastructure at Spotify, told WIRED. “That’s using space, its buying hardware and equipment but now we’re doing a big push to partner with Google on running the Spotify backend — the guts that power the Spotify service — in Google’s cloud platform.” Over the next two years — in what Harteau said will be a “big and complex process to move” — Spotify will work with Google to move all of its backend to Google’s platform; so far, 200,000 Spotify users have been tested on the system. It’s believed the move shouldn’t affect the service’s performance. Guillaume Leygues, from Google’s Cloud Platform, said that using the company’s services would allow Spotify staff to run complex database queries and get answers quickly. “This lets Spotify perform more frequent in-depth, interactive analysis, guiding product development, feature testing and more intelligent user-facing features,” the Google staffer wrote.
