Data mesh is one of the hottest topics in the data industry, because it seeks to enhance scalability and democratization through a self-serve and domain-oriented design.

By deploying the data mesh concept, Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. offers federated access because the culture of data warehouses being monolithic is eliminated, according to Ash Naseer (pictured, right), senior director of data engineering at Warner Bros.

“When people think of Warner Bros., you always think of the movie studio, but we’re more than that,” he said. “Think of HBO, TNT and CNN; we have 30-plus brands in our portfolio, and each has its own needs. The idea of a data mesh really helps us, because what we can do is we can federate access across the company so that CNN can work at their own pace.”

Naseer and Mitesh Shah (pictured, left), vice president of market strategy at Alation Inc., spoke with theCUBE industry analysts Dave Vellante and Lisa Martin at Snowflake Summit, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how the Alation-Snowflake partnership enables Warner Bros. to have a smooth data mesh framework. (* Disclosure below.) 

The magic of data sharing at Warner Bros.

Snowflake enabled Warner Bros. to create different accounts and data products for its brands to operate independently, with oversight and guidance in place. Moreover, the data-sharing capability rendered was a game-changer, according to Naseer.

“Snowflake allows us to separate those brands into different accounts … so that was done by design,” he said. “The magic is the Snowflake data sharing, which allows us to bring data in here once and then share it with whoever needs it. On HBO Max, you not only have HBO Max content, but content from CNN, Cartoon Network, and Warner Bros.”

Having been deemed Snowflake’s Data Governance Partner of the Year twice, Shah believes Alation offers the data mesh governance needed to tackle the bottlenecks created by centralized IT.

“Where Alation comes in is we are sort of this central flexible foundation for data governance,” he stated.

Alation drives the troubles of finding data away through cataloguing, Naseer added.

“Alation is sort of the treasure map of the data,” he explained. “So for consumers to find where their data is, Alation helps us with the data cataloging … storing all the metadata.

Alation renders the notion of governance and self-service simultaneously, according to Shah.

“What’s interesting is it’s not just governance, but self-service as well … there are two big sorts of rockets that need to happen at the same time in any given organization,” he noted. “There’s this notion that you want to put trustworthy data in the hands of data consumers while at the same time mitigating risk, and that’s precisely what Alation does.”

Since Warner Bros. has a huge operational environment, Naseer believes data mesh helps with decentralization.

“CNN has a website, and so does Warner Bros.,” he pointed out. “For us to ingest that data for each brand, that means five different ways of doing things. That’s where our team comes into play. We ingest a lot of the common data sets.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Snowflake Summit event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Snowflake Summit event. Neither Snowflake, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE