AWS Podcast #722: The Frugal Architect w/Werner Vogels: How Warner Bros. Discovery keeps streaming seamless
May 26, 2025
Tom Leaman, VP of Site Reliability Engineering at Warner Bros. Discovery, shares insights from his role in ensuring seamless streaming for millions on platforms like Max and Discovery Plus. He discusses the importance of a standardized operational metadata schema and the challenges of merging tech cultures. With only nine months to launch, Leaman highlights swift architectural decision-making and balancing cost efficiency with user experience. He also emphasizes fostering a learning culture through data analysis and incident management practices.
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Operational Metadata Schema Story
- Warner Bros. Discovery created an operational metadata schema to standardize resource taxonomy like a "mailing address" for cloud assets.
- This resolved issues with teams having disparate resource cataloging methods across accounts.
Drive Tagging with Leadership Buy-In
- Engage senior leadership and security teams to align on the business value of standardized tagging and resource ownership.
- Use regular compliance reports to drive tagging and accountability improvements.
Cost Per Subscriber Metric Insight
- Tracking efficiency as cost per subscriber aligns cloud spend with business growth and subscriber base.
- This approach allows comparing new platform efficiency to legacy services meaningfully.