CUSTOMER ISSUE

One of Canada's leading providers of data, Internet Protocol (IP), voice and wireless communications services needed a reporting framework for fast analysis of real-time transactional data. The resulting enterprise-class solution involved creating a data aggregation model and reporting package while leveraging customers' existing IT investments in BI environments and DB infrastructure.

PROJECT DELIVERABLES

Project Deliverables - Technology Evaluation

• Evaluated existing BI investments and database infrastructure
• Short-listed three solution alternatives and created working prototypes to illustrate each technology approach
• Presented the prototypes to the executive team along with a cost-benefit analysis for each alternative
• Prepared high-level development estimates and risk assessment for the selected solution alternative

Technical Deliverables - Requirement Analysis

• Identified all end user groups and worked with them to clearly articulate and document the problems they wished to solve
• Liaised with stakeholders to specifically state their success criteria
• Analyzed existing systems to identify all data sources and formats
• Reverse engineered legacy systems to identify reporting bottlenecks and areas for performance improvements
• Formulated a specific budget - time, money, and personnel

Technical Deliverables - Data Warehousing Design

• Engineered dimensional models to address discrete business processes, such as cellular network troubleshooting and issue management
• Identified Oracle fact data tables of approximately 2Terabytes of data
• Designed aggregation and dimension tables that contain hierarchies of attributes that aided in summarization
• Designed Oracle organizational indexes to ensure aggregation and reporting performance

Technical Deliverables - Performance Reports

• Developed a customized user environment using OLE Automation and Cognos Macro language
• Created Impromptu catalogs to address reporting access and performance considerations during enterprise deployment
• Developed Cognos Impromptu reports using advance techniques such as conditional prompts, drill-through reports and sub-reports
• Optimized report execution performance by leveraging Client/Server balancing techniques and query optimizations