University of Massachusetts migrates to the cloud to leverage advanced analytics 

The University of Massachusetts (UMass) stands as a distinguished public university system, with its flagship campus rooted in Amherst. Established in 1863 as the Massachusetts Agricultural College, it evolved into the comprehensive UMass system, now encompassing multiple campuses, including medical, Boston, Lowell, and Dartmouth locations.

Recognized as a leading public research institution in the United States, UMass collectively drives significant economic impact and conducts vital research.

The Amherst campus, the largest within the system and a member of the Five Colleges consortium, provides a broad spectrum of undergraduate and graduate programs. Dedicated to accessible, high-quality education and the state's advancement, UMass attracts a diverse student body and a large faculty committed to both teaching and impactful research across numerous fields.

When UMass decided to migrate their OBIEE to OAC, they contacted our team here at Rittman Mead, a Pythian Company, for assistance. This move was part of the university's larger initiative to cut IT operational costs and transition from unsupported systems.

We began by building a PoC to validate OAC's suitability for the customer’s needs. With that confirmed, we then streamlined the migration process using our experience and advanced regression testing tools. This approach ensured that minimal disruption and high levels of support were provided to the university's team throughout all testing and deployment stages. It also enabled us to set up performance monitoring for ongoing visibility.

To ensure the university felt confident with the new system, we delivered a two-phase user adoption program. This included demonstrations of OAC’s new features and tailored training courses for their technical staff, administrators, and end-users, ensuring a smooth transition for all.

The migration itself involved setting up an OAC instance, configuring it, connecting to their data warehouse, setting up the necessary security elements, and importing their existing OBIEE RPD and Web catalog.

What does UMass now benefit from as a result of this migration:

• Use of a flexible and scalable OAC environment.
• They removed the need for costly upgrades.
• Access to new data visualization and self-service reporting tools for their team.
• Reduced IT bottlenecks.
• Zero disruption to their users throughout the entire migration.
• Increased user confidence in the use of the new platform for enhanced data insights as a result of the training provided.
• Increased free time for the university's IT team to focus on enabling improved self-service data access.

The need to reduce costs and streamline the use of advanced analytics prompted UMass to migrate to the cloud

The University of Massachusetts (UMass) needed to migrate their Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) system to Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC). This move was part of a larger university initiative aimed at reducing IT operational costs. They also sought to transition away from unsupported systems. UMass required a solution that would meet their practical needs, security, scalability, and usability requirements. Ultimately, they aimed to improve self-service data access and leverage advanced analytics.

Pythian offers a streamlined roadmap to OAC adoption

Our team of specialists at Rittman Mead, a Pythian Company, worked closely with the team at UMass to build a proof of concept (PoC) to confirm that OAC meets the practical needs, security, scalability, and usability requirements of the university.

Having agreed to the PoC, we moved into phase one of the university's user adoption program, where we provided the customer’s end-users with an initial demonstration to showcase the new features and improvements in OAC.

We then focused on streamlining the migration by leveraging our extensive experience with customer migrations, and applying our tried-and-tested process. Our own regression testing tool helped us cut down time spent on Quality Assurance (QA) without compromising on standards. We supported the university through a cycle of testing and fixes before rolling it out to production. Our team then set up performance monitoring, so the in-house development team could keep an eye on system resource usage.

Phase two of the user adoption program saw us complete three training courses to target different user types: technical, admin and end-user. This approach ensured everyone involved had a smooth onboarding experience with the new OAC system.

For the migration itself, our team of experts handled all the key steps: we spun up an OAC instance, configured it, connected to the on-premise data warehouse, established and set up the necessary security protocols, and imported the OBIEE Repository (RPD) and Web catalog.

• Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE)
• Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC)