Netflix and Instagram use Cache Aside to optimize high-scale video reads

Optimizing metadata retrieval is essential for reducing playback startup delays, which directly correlates to long-term subscriber retention in the streaming market. As platforms shift toward high-resolution 4K and 8K formats that strain infrastructure, efficient caching patterns like Cache Aside allow engineers to scale to billions of daily read requests without linearly increasing database costs. Moving forward, observers should monitor how platforms integrate these patterns with predictive AI to pre-warm caches before the first request, aiming to eliminate the 'first request penalty' entirely.

The emphasis on caching comes as video traffic is projected to account for 82% of all global internet traffic by late 2026, per data from Demandsage. This surge, driven by 4K and 8K streams requiring bitrates up to 90MB/second, has forced a shift away from pure hyperscale cloud reliance. Multiple industry reports from February 2026, including analyses by Broadpeak, indicate that streaming platforms are increasingly adopting hybrid infrastructures to gain direct control over edge caching and better manage unpredictable delivery costs.

Major players are also diversifying their backend strategies beyond simple look-aside patterns. For example, Netflix utilizes a proprietary distributed in-memory store called EVCache to handle up to 30 million requests per second globally, according to technical reviews from early 2026. This system operates as both a look-aside cache for high-volume metadata and a transient data store to ensure resilience across multiple AWS availability zones. By replicating data globally, these architectures provide a layer of insurance against regional cloud outages that would otherwise disrupt the user interface.

Furthermore, the economic landscape of 2026 has shifted the industry's focus from rapid expansion to margin preservation. As reported by Streaming Media in April 2026, delivery infrastructure is becoming hyper-distributed, moving away from centralized data centers toward hundreds of local edge nodes. This shift allows platforms to mitigate international transit costs—which can cause video start times to lag by over six seconds in some regions—by ensuring that localized 'hot' content remains in high-speed storage as close to the end user as possible.