CLOUD STRATEGY AND ROADMAP FOR A MEDICAL DEVICE SUPPLIER

ORGANIZATION

Our client is a leading, Joint Commission-accredited provider of ventilators, oxygen, sleep apnea treatment, nebulizers, wound care solutions, and home medical equipment. Their team comprises respiratory clinicians and experts in Medicare and insurance. Their success stems from implementing agile solutions that enhance productivity, streamline operations, eliminate bottlenecks, and enable paperless processes.

The client also offers a secure mobile app and patient portal, allowing customers to fully own their healthcare information, including access to digitally signed documents. As the organization continues its growth trajectory through multiple acquisitions, it requires a flexible and scalable infrastructure to meet expanding needs. They aim to transition to a secure, cost-effective cloud solution that supports growth while ensuring compliance.

CHALLENGE

Our client’s IT landscape is currently on-premise, with an accelerated growth trajectory due to acquisitions. The subsidiaries operate in a heterogeneous IT environment, leveraging different cloud platforms. To support future expansion, the desired future-state platform must be flexible, scalable, secure, cost-effective, and capable of integrating with diverse platforms.

To address these needs, our client sought an independent and unbiased assessment of cloud platforms, data warehouse migration strategy, and roadmap.

Their existing on-premise data warehouse is built on Db2 BLU, with ETL processes executed using DataStage, and reporting managed through Cognos. The initial focus for cloud migration is the data warehouse, as it is less business-critical. The migration of DataStage and Cognos environments to the cloud is considered a “nice to have” requirement, with the ultimate goal of supporting the migration of other critical applications as well.

TECHNICAL SOLUTION

XTIVIA conducted a thorough analysis of the client’s current state IT landscape, security architecture, data governance, SLA needs, pain points, regulatory compliance requirements, and future-state goals. We assessed various trade-offs in recommending the cloud platform and migration strategy, including Security, Scalability, Performance, Cost (both migration and operational), data availability, recoverability, HIPAA compliance, ease of migration, and Db2 license expiry.

We presented a detailed comparison of major cloud platforms in terms of services offered, security features, support, and other essential attributes. Based on our assessment, we recommended AWS as the cloud platform and Snowflake as the data warehouse solution, providing a future-state architecture, migration strategy, and roadmap.

Our recommendations included:

• Migrating the DB2 data warehouse to Snowflake on AWS, converting DataStage jobs to Snowflake ELT.
• Maintaining the Cognos Reporting environment as-is to avoid impacting end users, while recommending other self-service reporting solutions for new reporting needs.
• A comparison of different solution options:
  • Lift and shift DB2 to VM on the cloud
  • Migrate Db2 LUW to Db2 Warehouse Flex
  • Replatform to Snowflake
    • Provided future-state architecture with comprehensive security considerations.
    • Detailed migration approach and steps for migrating the Db2 data warehouse to Snowflake, including the conversion of DataStage jobs to Snowflake ELT. Additionally, parallel testing of the current-state and future-state data pipeline, including Cognos reports, was conducted.
    • Outlined a detailed roadmap with different phases, resource requirements, and timelines for a smooth transition.

BUSINESS RESULT

XTIVIA’s recommendations and solution delivered the following benefits:

• The client gained a comprehensive understanding of cloud platform options with the detailed analysis and architecture provided by XTIVIA.
• The thorough analysis, architecture, and roadmap empowered the client with insights into major cloud platforms, justifying XTIVIA’s recommendations (AWS and Snowflake), along with alternative options (Azure).
• The roadmap provided a solid foundation for conducting cost-benefit analyses, implementing plans, budgeting, staffing, and risk management.

KEYWORDS
Cloud Migration, Data Warehouse Migration, Cloud Data Warehouse, Snowflake, Db2, DataStage, Cognos, DaaS

SOFTWARE
Snowflake, Db2, DataStage, Cognos, AWS

HARDWARE
AIX, Windows

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