Information Technology Strategic Planning
Projects
Project Title:
Operational Data Store (ODS) Implementation
Project Advocate:
Brad Harding
Project Manager:
Brad Harding
Project Overview:
The SungardHE Operational Data Store is a dedicated operational reporting environment that enables self service operational reporting of Banner/SIS and other data by business users with limited technical knowledge. The implementation of the ODS at UC Merced will eliminate the risk to our Banner/SIS production environment of degraded performance or system outages caused by operational reporting. It will also provide a secure mechanism for making key university data available to a broader set of constituents than is possible in our current reporting environment.
The implementation project will involve establishing ODS test and production environments, including Extract/Transform/Load (ETL) software processes that move the data from its source in the Banner/SIS transactional system to the ODS. The project also includes training of technical staff in the operation and development of the ODS environment, and training of business users in the end user reporting environment.
Over time, additional data sources beyond core Banner/SIS data (such as undergraduate admissions data via CASA XML files) can be incorporated into the ODS, increasing its overall value. But incorporating these data sources is outside the scope of the initial ODS Implementation project.
Key Stakeholders:
Allan Grimsby – Interim Registrar
Diana Ralls – Director, Financial Aid
Encarnacion Ruiz – Director, Undergraduate Admissions
Kevin Browne – AVC, Enrollment Services
Callale Cierra – Director, Graduate Admissions
Oliver Nandkishore – Director, Student Business Services And Cashiering
Nancy Ochsner – Director, Institutional Planning and Analysis
Brad Harding – Manager, Student Information Systems
Benefits:
Eliminates risk of performance degradation to Banner SIS production transactional environment caused by operational reporting.
Improves operational reporting performance through dedicated hardware resources as well as data models optimized for reporting.
Empowers end users to conduct self service reporting through a simplified data model, metadata repository (data dictionary), and easy to use reporting tools and templates.
Reduces burden on departmental report development staff for creation of standard reports. Also, provides a solution for those departments without report development staff (Graduate Admissions, Student Accounting).
Promotes accuracy of data in source system(s), by exposing data quality issues through increased end user reporting and the ETL (Extract/Transform/Load) processes that feed the ODS.
Provides platform for operational reporting for non-Banner source systems.
Provides foundation for campus data warehouse/data marts, by serving as data source for those systems, and by establishing data warehousing skills and experience among technical staff.
Project Deliverables:
ODS test and production database instances. Test ODS database to be hosted on existing SIS test hardware, production ODS database to be hosted on dedicated server.
ETL processes for loading the ODS database instances from source systems.
End user reporting environment, based on Oracle Discoverer.
ODS administration utility, based on Banner WebTailor.
Metadata repository (data dictionary).
Training of technical staff in tools and technologies for development and operation of ODS, including Oracle Warehouse Builder ETL tool, ODS administration utility, and Oracle Discoverer end user reporting environment, and related tools.
Training of functional staff in the use of the ODS reporting environment.
Documentation on ODS administration procedures, user documentation.
Initiative(s) Supported:
Related Projects:
Milestones:
ODS technical training (date tba)
ODS test environment installation and setup (date tba)
ODS ETL and data quality testing complete (date tba)
End user reporting tool test environment installation and setup (date tba)
End user reporting training (date tba)
ODS production environment installation and setup (date tba)
End user reporting tool production environment installation and setup (date tba)
Costs & Funding (Capital & Operational):
The ODS Implementation project relies partially on existing or shared resources: Sun V880 for production hardware, and campus Oracle site license for Oracle DBMS and Application Server licenses. Costs specific to the project are:
SungardHE ODS software license: $25,000
Implementation consulting and training: $20,000
Recurring costs include SungardHE ODS software maintenance.
Project Team:
Stan Stavitsky – Oracle DBA
John Souza – ODS Developer and Administrator
Seema Ahuja – Backup Oracle DBA and ODS Administrator
Helpdesk (?)
Issues/Risks:
Despite the benefits of ODS reporting solution, overcoming the inertia of our current approach to reporting may be difficult. It will be very important to help motivate reporting users to move to ODS through ongoing training and support.
The project may reveal data quality issues in the source Banner/SIS data that must be addressed before the project can be completed, delaying the completion.
The ODS production hardware (Sun V880) is currently being used as an application server in the SAKAI production environment. A new cluster of servers has been purchased to host SAKAI, but plans to move SAKAI off of the V880 have been delayed due to difficulties in the purchasing or procurement of additional memory for the server cluster. The V880 may not be available when needed for ODS, delaying the completion of the project.
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