# It's What's Inside: The Game

AKQA · for Netflix · Shipped · Role: SRE lead

**50k+ concurrent users in the first 10 minutes**

A Netflix game where up to six players impersonate each other using AI face and voice swapping. I led SRE for its launch, including the Kubernetes platform it ran on.

Public write-up: [See the project on AKQA.com](https://www.akqa.com/work/netflix/its-whats-inside-the-game/)

## Key facts

- **Game**: Up to six players impersonate each other with AI face and voice swapping
- **Launch**: 50k+ concurrent users in the first 10 minutes
- **Platform**: Kubernetes with GPU workloads, monitored in Grafana (NVIDIA DCGM)

## Problem

A public launch concentrates traffic into the first minutes, and the AI workload depends on GPUs, so the platform had to scale fast and GPU health had to be visible.

## Architecture

Simplified platform view.

1. **Traffic**: Players (Launch-day demand)
2. **Platform**: Kubernetes clusters (Designed for launch scale); GPU workloads (AI face transformation)
3. **Observe**: NVIDIA DCGM (GPU metrics); Grafana (Dashboards)

## My contribution

- Led SRE for the launch.
- Designed the Kubernetes clusters that scaled to 50k+ concurrent users in the first 10 minutes.
- Included Grafana monitoring of NVIDIA DCGM GPU metrics.

## Key decisions

- Kubernetes as the platform for the GPU-backed game workloads.
- GPU health tracked through NVIDIA DCGM metrics in Grafana.

## Implementation

- Led SRE for the launch.
- Designed the Kubernetes clusters for launch-day scale.
- Set up Grafana monitoring of NVIDIA DCGM GPU metrics.

## Reliability and safety

- GPU metrics (NVIDIA DCGM) monitored in Grafana.

## Outcomes

- Clusters scaled to 50k+ concurrent users in the first 10 minutes of launch.

## Stack

Kubernetes, GPU, Grafana, NVIDIA DCGM

_Infrastructure is described at a high level; capacity figures beyond the public launch number are omitted._

Web page: https://naman-kumar2397.github.io/projects/netflix-game-launch/ · Author: Naman Kumar, Lead Site Reliability Engineer (naman.kumar2397@gmail.com)