Netflix 'grows up and moves on' with ServiceNow ITSM deployment

Netflix director of technology Ashley Sprague and senior developer Toggi Pollack explain why the video streaming service opted for ServiceNow

Netflix selected ServiceNow IT service management (ITSM) tools for ticket management because it enabled developers at the global online video streaming service to "grow up and move on" from a home-grown system and to "get things out on the fly".

Director of technology Ashley Sprague and senior developer Toggi Pollack both spoke to Computing shortly after giving a session on IT service management at ServiceNow's Knowledge 15 conference in Las Vegas.

"We were using a home-grown tool and we knew we needed to grow up and move on. The employee who'd written it had left and so we looked at ServiceNow," said Sprague, describing how Netflix's growth meant it needed to alter how it did ITSM.

Pollack explained why Netflix decided to opt for software-as-a-service as the solution to their problem.

"We looked at SaaS because we don't want to have responsibility for uptime - we shouldn't be responsible for that. We want to focus on how we can use it," she said, adding: "I think that's where ServiceNow came into place. Employees wanted access to a ticketing system, but there were a lot of mandatory requirements we had in order to do that."

Netflix didn't have a history of using an IT infrastructure library (ITIL), but was impressed with the simple tools ServiceNow had on offer and how they enabled customisation.

"What we really found out is that you see how Netflix isn't really ITIL orientated. But ServiceNow's [philosophy is] 'you do it any way you do it, we'll provide you with the tools'," said Pollack, who praised the way ServiceNow enables Netflix to do whatever it wants with the platform.

"If you look into other companies, they're more complex but then their developers will insist on doing things for you. We don't really have time and patience for that, we want to get things out of the fly," she said.

"I think that's one of the main reasons we decided to go with ServiceNow. It was because of the customisation," Pollack said.

Sprague also spoke in-depth to Computing about Netflix's cloud-first mentality.