Pythian helps a major online content network implement cloud-based analytics solution

Customer Success

Pythian helps a content network create a 360° view of customer experience

An online content network wanted to improve its analytics capabilities by migrating their on-premises Teradata data warehouse to the cloud. Pythian designed and implemented the solutions.

Overview

Online Content Network
Industries
Media & Entertainment
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Since its founding decades ago, a major US online content network has grown from relatively humble beginnings into a media heavyweight with over 1.5 billion viewers per year. The company earns more than $500M in annual revenue from entertainment, music, video games, news, and sports sources. 

To improve efficiencies and reduce costs, the online content network needed to migrate their on-premises Teradata data warehouse to the public cloud and improve their analytics capabilities to provide a 360-degree view of customer experience. They chose Google Cloud as the basis for their new data hub because of the significant cost savings associated with not managing on-premises hardware and software, while it also enabled them to stay current with the latest technology without requiring in-house time and expertise. For their analytics engine, they chose Google BigQuery. The challenge was to determine how to prepare and migrate multi-source customer data from their Teradata data warehouse to Google BigQuery data analytics warehouse, while also integrating all their data sources in the new data hub.  

They needed a partner with expertise in Google Cloud Platform, migrations from legacy systems, data analytics, and all the tools needed to build a pipeline for the data transfer. The partner also needed to be able to both design and implement a customized analytics solution. 

With unrivalled experience in migration planning and implementation, data analytics, and all the tools and required expertise, Pythian was uniquely qualified to act as advisor and resource hub. 

What we did

  • Developed a cloud-based analytics solution 
    • Designed and implemented a data pipeline that used Apache NiFi to integrate data from approximately 60 sources, including: 
      • MySQL database
      • Oracle database  
      • A number of APIs 
      • Omniture DoubleClick for Publishers marketing and web analytics 
      • Pardot B2B Marketing Analytics 
      • Tableau reports 
      • Neilsen ratings and viewing data 
    • Exported the data from the Teradata data warehouse to Apache Hadoop Distributed File System orchestrated by Google Cloud Dataproc, then transferred to Google Cloud Storage and loaded into Google BigQuery
    • Created a data dictionary using Apache Avro to define the company’s various data types 

Technologies used

  • Google Cloud
  • Google BigQuery 
  • Google Cloud Storage 
  • Google Cloud Dataproc 
  • Apache NiFi 

Key Outcomes

Pythian’s experience with migrations and analytics solutions, plus technical expertise in the selected technologies, resulted in a flexible and cost-efficient data analytics solution. In Google BigQuery the cost of storage and compute are kept separate, and on-demand pricing enables the customer to pay for only the storage and compute they use. Query response time is also better with Google BigQuery than Teradata, and BigQuery can adapt to any data type or format, plus convert formats, without additional charges. 


Higher performance, increased flexibility, and lowered costs with an effective analytics solution  


360-degree view of customer experience delivers an irreplaceable competitive advantage 

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No matter your business, no matter the challenge: Pythian’s solutions drive results. 

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