Accelerating delivery and lowering risk of global financial services firm's move to Azure data warehouse
Expert Thinking supports a global financial services firm in their migration from a legacy Oracle data warehouse to an Azure data platform. We provided mentoring, technical design reviews, coding patterns for ETLs and platform integration support to the technical delivery teams. This enabled the customer to have confidence in their design, accelerated technical delivery, reduced delivery risk and enhanced integration with their new transactional systems.
PROBLEM & IMPACT
Our customer was constrained by its legacy data warehouse and analytics platform and recognised the need for a new solution that would seamlessly integrate with a new cloud-based transactional system. Specific problems included:
- The existing solution was an on-premise Oracle data warehouse, running legacy end-of-life hardware.
- The solution no longer aligned with the organisation’s new transactional system.
- Integration with the legacy warehouse would be very difficult and expensive to undertake and maintain.
- Significant cost challenges associated with both the platform licensing and hardware services.
Our customer recognised a move to a cloud-based data platform would meet the business’s needs and align with their technology strategy, but needed assistance in terms of design and engineering support.
SOLUTION
Expert Thinking supported the solution architecture and engineering, focusing on:
- Platform strategy and architecture, service definition, cost considerations and technology strategy alignment.
- Integration with the SDLC, leveraging DevOps ways of working.
- SSIS and ADF configuration.
- ETL/ELT development support and coaching, defining best practice and associated “templates”.
- Azure Data Factory, SSIS, DR and redundancy options, design and configuration, and Analysis Services.
“Expert Thinking has significantly contributed to our confidence in moving to the cloud by reviewing our approaches and design as well as providing technical input and practical support, helping focus us on areas of value, where it would be easy to be overwhelmed by the vast amount of options and information available in the cloud arena.”
RESULTS
We helped our customer avoid many of the pitfalls that organisations encounter when moving to cloud data services, specifically:
- Accelerating the delivery of a fit-for-purpose Azure data services solution.
- Reducing risks relating to data warehouse design, increasing confidence in the success of a complex migration from Oracle to Azure.
- Increasing velocity of change, removing/reducing time spent on proof of concepts/pilots, and reducing the overall cost of development.
- Delivering a cost-optimised service – utilising only those specific services required.
- Providing clear direction/support on ETL development approach.
