How BMW Manages 1K+ Microservices and Handles Over 12 Billion Daily Requests with AWS
Introduction
Integrating advanced technology with vehicles is crucial to enhancing driving experiences and ensuring driver safety. BMW Group collaborates closely with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to elevate customer experience and vehicle entertainment. Through AWS, BMW delivers features such as automated driving, cloud data hubs, AI personal assistants, on-board Fire TV, and numerous other connected vehicle services.
The Numbers
BMW's use of AWS underscores the cloud's power and scalability. Here are some impressive figures demonstrating AWS’s capabilities for BMW:
- 20 million+ connected vehicles on the cloud.
- 12 billion requests per day from vehicles.
- 1,000+ microservices in their IT infrastructure.
- 110 terabytes of traffic data processed daily.
- 99.95% reliability for seamless customer experiences.
- 8.5K developers working on the infrastructure.
- 110K builds (features or fixes) pushed per day.
- 60K virtual CPUs utilized on the cloud.
- 60K EC2 instances powering daily computational needs.
AWS Services
BMW leverages numerous AWS services for computing, data storage, and machine learning. Key services include:
- Amazon EC2: Used for virtual development and infotainment systems.
- Amazon SageMaker: Powers the machine learning-driven automated driving platform.
- Amazon Redshift: Serves as a data lake for the Cloud Data Hub.
- Amazon Alexa: Facilitates voice control features.
- Amazon S3: Used for file storage.
- Amazon Athena: Runs queries against data stored on S3.
BMW’s Advanced Driver Assistance
One of BMW’s standout uses of AWS is its advanced driver assistance system. This system enhances driving experience and safety by gathering data on speed limits, surrounding vehicles, lane markings, and GPS/navigation data. The system can intelligently apply brakes, adjust acceleration, and execute steering maneuvers to avoid collisions and ease driving in challenging conditions. These advanced features are maintained by AWS, utilizing Amazon SageMaker for intelligent systems and EC2 instances and Redshift for data handling. Amazon Alexa powers voice-controlled features.
Advantages of the Cloud
Running BMW’s IT infrastructure in its own data centers would require substantial upfront costs. AWS eliminates this need by offering resizable compute capacity and unlimited resources on demand. This flexibility allows BMW to experiment and scale operations efficiently.
Stephan Durach, Vice President of Technical Operations at BMW, highlights the benefits of AWS:
"Automotive product complexity is strongly increasing and development speed is essential. Using a broad relationship across Amazon and AWS, we are providing game-changing vehicle entertainment experiences, mastering data, and accelerating the development cycle across the entire portfolio from BMW to MINI to deliver best-in-class experiences to our customers."
Conclusion
BMW’s partnership with AWS illustrates the transformative impact of advanced cloud technology on the automotive industry. AWS enables BMW to handle vast amounts of data, support a large IT infrastructure with over 1,000 microservices, and ensure a near-flawless customer experience with 99.95% reliability. The use of AWS services facilitates innovative features like advanced driver assistance systems and AI-powered functionalities, driving BMW's continuous innovation and operational excellence.
For more detailed information, you can refer to the original sources:
- BMW Group Selects AWS to Power Next-Generation Automated Driving Platform
- BMW on AWS: Case Studies, Videos, Innovator Stories