Netflix engineers built Graph Abstraction, a high-throughput platform managing 650 TB of graph data with millisecond latency. Supporting services from Netflix Gaming’s social graphs to operational top

InfoQ is a leading online platform for software developers, architects, and technical leaders, providing news, articles, presentations, and interviews on a wide range of topics, including agile practices, DevOps, microservices, and emerging technologies. With a focus on quality content and expert insights, InfoQ helps professionals stay informed about the latest trends, best practices, and industry developments. Developers can learn from real-world experiences, gain  knowledge, and connect with peers in the global software community through InfoQ's diverse and engaging content.

InfoQ

Netflix engineers built Graph Abstraction, a high-throughput platform managing 650 TB of graph data with millisecond-level latency globally. Rather than a standalone graph database, it layers on top of existing Netflix infrastructure: a Key-Value abstraction for current state, a TimeSeries abstraction for historical data, and EVCache for distributed caching. The system supports use cases like social graphs for Netflix Gaming and service topology graphs for incident analysis. It restricts traversal depth to trade query flexibility for consistent low latency, achieving single-digit millisecond latency for single-hop traversals and under 50ms for two-hop queries at p90. Global availability is maintained through asynchronous cross-region replication with eventual consistency. A gRPC API inspired by Gremlin exposes traversal capabilities to internal services.

Inside Netflix’s Graph Abstraction: Handling 650TB of Graph Data in Milliseconds Globally