Emergency Relief Database and Performance Optimization

Data handling performance enhancements for our client with billions in operational funds for assisting with emergency relief, education, health care, economic development, and the promotion of justice to those in need.

Case Study: Throughout its growth, an organization will experience a surplus of data. Over time, performance will decrease due to a combination of a legacy system and excess data growth. This issue hit one of the world’s largest relief and development organizations–one that manages billions in operational funds for providing emergency relief, education, health care, economic development, and justice for those in need globally. The organization operates as a federation of interdependent national offices with three different levels of central control. Intertech’s job was to help fix the performance issues, solve other problems related to the surplus of data, and optimize the system.

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Case-Study

Technology Used
SQL Server
Database

Methodology
Agile

Project

Database and Performance Optimization

 

Project Requirements

The organization is faced with an increasing population of data and an improper data/report model in place to support report demands within the organization. The client reached out to Intertech to assist them with optimizing their current Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Environment and resolve performance issues without replacing the system. The database included medical and educational records of millions of children converted from an old Lotus Notes application and was poorly normalized. With ministries located around the world accessing the system, optimization and security were of importance. Our team contributed to sizing the hardware, normalizing the data, designing a conversion process, building a data warehouse, developing the nightly data population process, and rewriting reports. 

Result

The outcome of this project improved reporting capabilities while realizing considerable performance gains. Newly created data marts were put into place for reporting purposes rather than reporting against ODS. In addition, custom reports were made available with dynamic reporting capabilities, increasing performance by more than 15% globally, between the Philippines, Minnesota, North Dakota, California, and Washington, making the organization more efficient and effective overall.

Overview

To begin fixing the performance issues, as well as others identified early on, Intertech evaluated their current environment, proposed recommendations to improve reporting performance, and implemented the recommendations for a more optimal reporting platform. Our team proposed a product delivery based service to the client by providing assistance revolving around deploying the Microsoft SQL Database Monitoring Reports and the tasks listed below.

  • Requirements Gathering
  • SQL logging analysis
  • Reports design (13 new SSRS reports)
  • Data mart design
  • ETL Development
  • Reports Development
  • System Documentation
  • Knowledge Transfer
  • Hardware Sizing

Intertech used an iterative approach with weekly check-ins using WebEx to ensure the team was aligned and working toward the goal. This helped tremendously as team members were scattered all over the globe (Philippines, Minnesota, North Dakota, California, and Washington). With such a large-scale system, there was a significant discovery process for designing our approach. 

Intertech has been in business for nearly 30 years. Many of our projects are considered confidential by our clients. For this reason, and out of respect for our customer’s privacy, we do not mention companies by name regarding specific projects, with the clear understanding that the project outlined and presented is actual work Intertech and their consultants have completed successfully.

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"Intertech’s SQL expertise was invaluable in improving our database server performance."

“Intertech’s SQL expertise was invaluable in improving our database server performance. Thanks to the guidance and work from Intertech consultants, we’ve reduced runtime on common queries, modernized our technology stack, created a platform for real-time sales feedback, and enabled more comprehensive strategic planning for our company. We look forward to working with Intertech on future projects to drive even more value from our data.”

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