Emergency Services

CASE STUDY

Data Hub Proof of Value

Data Hub proof of value blazes a new trail for Emergency Services reporting and real-time SMS data access.

A new data hub architecture was the key to unlocking the next-generation of this Emergency Services' reporting and data access potential. 

Client need

This emergency services authority operates a sophisticated data analytics platform, to support the collection, standardisation, and integration of a myriad of disparate data sets, to provide information for various regulatory and business reporting needs. The data analytics environment was established around 2010, and is comprised of a traditional enterprise data warehouse built on Microsoft SQL Server, paired up with Microsoft reporting and BI tools (SSRS and PowerBI).  The data warehouse had served the organisation exceedingly well, however constraints associated with the architecture adopted meant adding new data was becoming increasingly more difficult, time consuming and costly – a situation that was hindering the provision of new data sets to the business. A key technology question they needed to address was whether to invest in improving their legacy data warehouse, or just “bite the bullet” and move to a new data architecture? And if they were to make the move, then what would that new data architecture be?

___Our approach 

This emergency services agency engaged us to design a more modern data architecture to support data integration, exploration and analytics.  

When designing a data architecture, we take a technology agnostic approach to specifying an integrated suite of data capabilities, which can then be implemented using a mix of existing platforms, or where there are gaps, through the establishment of new platforms. 

The new data architecture, employs a mix of data storage platforms and data modelling techniques, to achieve a scalable and agile solution, supporting bimodal development - lower cost for data experimentation vs. higher cost for governed reports (this is often referred to as bimodal development). 

The data architecture features a Data Lake to make raw data available quickly, and a downstream “Data Vault” based model, to support the standardisation and integration of data. Data Virtualisation is used to integrate data “just in time”, thus reducing the need for costly (ETL based) data transformation pipelines.

The data architecture also incorporates various data governance capabilities including master and meta data management, data quality dashboard, business glossary, and data catalogue.

Value delivered

We implemented the new Data Hub architecture together with this agencies resources on a mix of Microsoft Azure and on-premise SQL Server. We then assisted them to develop a suite of OH&S dashboards on the new architecture, and up-skilled their team in the process. The new architecture was subsequently endorsed by the Emergency Services'  Technology and Data Steering committee as the way forward, and is currently being transitioned to production usage. As a final demonstration of the new platforms capability we developed a chat-bot demonstration (on Microsft Azure) that enabled users to interact with Data Hub via SMS using natural English in real-time.  The agencies' Data Analytics practice manager also co-presented a case study with us at the Chief Data Analytics Officer Summit in Melbourne, on the Data Hub proof of value project and the benefits realised for the organisation.




Potential realised.