Warner Media

Senior Technical Manager

GENERAL TECHNOLOGY ORGANIZATION, MEDIA ENABLEMENT

When I first got to Turner, the Identity Services team had a product called MSiB (Member Service in a Box). This 3.5 iteration of the member service software was implemented using JavaServer Faces and was klunky (at best) to use. This had pushed several of the Turner brands (this is what Turner called their internal properties like CNN, PGA America, Adult Swim, NBA Digital, et. al.) to move away from this system and on occasion purchase another user management system from an external company. So that needed to change.

I led a team of architects and developers to create the fourth generation of internal user management service. We named it Dalton. This product was written to be a set of Java/Spring Boot micro-services accessed through REST APIs that were written in Jersey. Utilizing Terraform and Kubernetes allowed us to present a “buffet” style of options to our customers, the Turner brands. This allowed them to choose which micro-services/infrastructure they needed and made their environments uniquely suited to their specific needs. For example, NBA Digital sold subscriptions to NBA League Pass and these transactions went through our eCommerce services. Cartoon Network, who deals in children’s entertainment did not sell any product or services, so they could omit eCommerce modules from their implementation. NCAA wanted to maintain a user subscription list, so it was easy to add a newsletters module for them.

Dalton performs authentication (who are you) and authorization (what can you do) that allows for access to the various services. Dalton provided a multitude of ways to authenticate (email, user name/password, Facebook, Google, Apple, etc.) and the brand picked the ones they wanted. There are integration with various digital stores (Stripe, Vindicia, Google Play, Apple Store, Amazon, Roku) for the sales of streaming digital content for both live and VOD media. We also verified users’ active in-home subscriptions with external providers via Adobe Pass and TV Everywhere. All of these were used to build a comprehensive list of entitlements that a user had that could be used to gain access to gated content.

We also worked with the Turners Data Lake team in providing user and usage information, and facilitated adherence to policies like the Consumer Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) or Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Cloud Architecture Review Board (CARB)

The CARB was responsible for looking at all new development projects and any large scale changes to an existing system. The all volunteer board was made up of stakeholders from different areas of the organization; it reviewed the architecture document and diagrams from the team implementing the change. This was to ensure that any technologies used were within the footprint of the organization (reduce complexity), the cost of the systems were reasonably accounted for (budget management), and that the solution adhered to the defined practices and standards (risk management).

Change Management Board

We implemented a change management system for software release to Warner Media. This allowed for better understanding of and visibility to any changes made to the software systems. The team defined the types of changes (standard, low risk, etc…) and the procedure to classify changes into the correct type. Each type of change had varying qualifications and approvals to go through before it could be implemented. For example, a “standard” change just needed a manager’s approval, while a higher risk change would require higher awareness and approval and a longer notification time frame. This was all set up in Service Now, including approval groups, email distribution/notification lists, and the schedule time of the change. All changes were coordinated in this system to prevent overlaps and ovoid potential conflicts.