How DPG Media reduced storage costs and compute with DataHub
- Challenge: Mergers and acquisitions left DPG Media with a fragmented landscape of operational systems and data technology across inherited companies, with no single unified view of its data assets, lineage, or growth over time.
- Solution: Deployed DataHub on AWS to expose DPG Media's entire data landscape, including acquired companies' assets, into one consistent structure, enabling unified visibility across metadata, lineage, and storage.
- Impact: Reduced annual data storage costs by more than 50% by surfacing AWS S3 metadata insights through DataHub, while building the observability and governance foundation now positioned to power the company's AI strategy.
Video Transcript
[00:02] We selected DataHub primarily because we believe in their vision. I'm Sven van Egmond, work at DPG Media. DPG Media is all about radio, television, newspapers, apps, websites, what have you. All about informing our users, inspiring them, engaging them on content, but also on services.
[00:27] I act as a Head of Data, and in that role, I'm responsible for managing data technology. Due to mergers and acquisitions, we have a tremendous landscape of different operational systems, different data technology, and it's key to have one single point of view where you can say, "Hey, these are data assets that we not only manage, but also need to observe in terms of lineage, in terms of growth over time."
[00:58] When selecting DataHub, two things were important. First of all, it was all about open source. Secondly, the vision of the company that is actually managing the solution for us was spot on. Key in that decision-making was also the fact that we could host it on AWS.
[01:17] We started with DataHub in a very profound way, so that means we expose our entire data landscape to DataHub, that gives you automatically a perfect overview of everything out there. So, what we see over time with acquisitions is DataHub is key, because, over time, we do not only acquire a company, but we inherit their data landscape in terms of technology and assets, and
[01:43] DataHub is, for us, crucial in exposing that new landscape of that acquired company in the same structure and vision we have on using DataHub. And that makes it very transparent to combine things like synergies that we want to achieve. And while exposing AWS S3 in DataHub, we learned that the richness of the AWS S3 metadata was fully aligned with DataHub, which led us to perfect strategies per asset that resulted in a dramatic reduction of data storage costs, think about more than 50% on a annual basis.
[02:26] So, looking at the business case behind DataHub, it's very simple, it's all about storage and compute, and we were able to reduce both. One of the biggest surprises while implementing DataHub is that it's not about we and them, it's one team that works together on not only implementing the product, but also bringing the product further.
[02:47] So, for us, the competitive advantage of DataHub is simple, if you don't know what your data's about, then how can you make use of that? So it's all about having the right information in the right context at the right moment. So, looking ahead, I think it's the most interesting period of time when it comes to data technology. AI dominates the news stories out there, and the role of DataHub is pivotal because they own the exposure layer on data assets, and that is so rich in terms of context.
[03:19] We believe strongly in our partnership, and we think that they are crucial in guiding us to the new era. We are positioned in a way that we set out the foundation layers of data observability and data governance. So, on top of that, AI will be the new play, and since we already invested five years ago in this corporation, I think we're ahead of the game.
[03:42] Working with DataHub is all about working with people, and not with a company, and that's a huge advantage when it comes to getting us up to speed for the next era.
