IGCL’s Data Warehousing Services

IGCL's data warehousing services rely heavily on a data warehouse development process model, which is the result of experience the group has gained through successful client engagements and from assimilating industry best practices. This process model is flexible and is designed to support incremental and iterative development. It also encapsulates an onsite/offshore execution model, which provides a cost benefit to the client and helps optimize project cycle time by distributing application development and support between offshore and onsite development facilities, thereby enabling "round-the-clock" implementation. (Onsite/offshore implementation is examined later in more detail).

As shown in Figure 1, IGCL's process model supports all aspects of the data warehouse lifecycle. It facilitates rapid application development and reduces both the cost and risk associated with data warehouse projects by providing a proven methodology for scoping data warehouse project engagements, validating application design, and identifying products to support the design, implementation, and upkeep of data warehousing and BI applications. The process model also supports IGCL consultants with standard practices for interacting with clients throughout all stages of the project lifecycle.

Consult

In this initial consulting and discovery phase, IGCL consultants work with the client to assess the client's immediate and long-term data warehousing and BI needs and to derive an overall plan for delivering the appropriate application.

A key task involves conducting a business and technical needs assessment to create a requirements specification. This includes clearly defining key business issues, creating a plan for applying BI to resolve them, and developing an understanding of the scope, business value, and impact that the proposed solution will bring the client.

A "road map" detailing how to proceed with the project is created.

This plan includes recommendations on technical issues and how to proceed with application development and delivery, and it provides cost estimates and strategies for gaining the appropriate business sponsorship and approval. A data warehouse project management plan is also created that specifies change control procedures, considers risk management planning and outlines project quality insurance guarantees, and analyzes such issues as what skills will be required to be transferred to the client to support application maintenance and upkeep.

Figure 1 -- IGCL data warehouse services development process model.

As a proof-of-concept, IGCL consultants create an application prototype, which is demonstrated to the client -- complete with sample analyses and reports -- to demonstrate the benefits and value of the solution. The final deliverable at the end of this phase is a requirements specification detailing the client's needs and project deliverables.

Architect

This phase entails creating the logical application design based on the business and technical requirements defined in the implementation road map. The goal is to facilitate a data warehouse/data mart design that matches the client's business needs with its infrastructure and architectural requirements.

Key tasks include creating a standard framework for implementing the necessary data acquisition architecture, designing the appropriate data models and metadata repository, and designing the supporting hardware and software architectures. Particular attention is paid to data quality issues, with IGCL consultants typically conducting data quality assessment engagements with the client. (For this activity, IGCL consultants rely on IGCL's data quality process model, which the firm has refined based on findings from repeated project engagements.) Tool/product selection and evaluation is also conducted during this stage.

Integrate

This phase consists of implementing the logical design, in which the overall application is developed and deployed. Key tasks include building the physical data warehouse database. The supporting ETL architecture and end-user BI applications (reporting, OLAP, data mining models, etc.) are also created and integrated with the data warehouse and specific data marts. Deployment is incremental and iterative in order to have the client realizing benefits quickly from the solution.

Testing and quality assurance is also conducted. This includes measuring warehouse/tool application performance and end-user acceptance, with a strong emphasis placed on satisfying end-user requirements through proper training and support.

Manage

This phase focuses on data warehouse administration and management and can consist of a one-time engagement or an ongoing effort. IGCL offers services that range from defining procedures for performing standard data warehouse capacity planning and performance tuning to assisting clients with support and enhancement services for scaling up applications and for the ongoing task of satisfying end-user needs with new analytical models and reporting functions.