Market Research -BI system and service review partner

This RFI is concerned with the Data Warehouse function, which has been developing an Oracle Exadata/Exalytics-based data warehouse and business intelligence solution over the last 2-3 years.

The solution was originally built on premise, however due to infrastructure limitations and timelines, development was moved to cloud in April 2017, with the system going live in June 2017. In summary the current solution is made up of:

- Exadata database - Business Intelligence Cloud Service/Oracle Analytics Cloud incorporating the repository (RPD) and catalog. - Deployed through the web to c.2,500 users

The solution initially included prescribing data with monthly loads of prescriptions dispensed (circa 100m rows per month), together with their associated dimensions (organisations; time; drugs; etc.), and a series of roll-up and pre-built tables to support the presentation layer.

The solution is scalable to allow for our expanding services, with current developments including the addition of NHS Dental and Pensions data.

Much positive feedback has been received, however we are keen to improve the responsiveness of the BI solution to its 3,500 user interaction. We are now therefore looking to understand what options we may have to improve this through better use of existing technology and/or alternative designs, approaches, tools or skillsets across the stack.

Outline Requirements

We want to develop the existing BI solution to be high performing/capable of supporting users analytical explorations at 'speed of thought'. To do this, we are seeking:

(i) a review of the existing technology/design to allow us to better leverage the current technology and identify areas where a material improvement in the useability and performance of the service could be made for our external customers.. We anticipate this will require a thorough understanding of the existing Oracle technology utilized by this service, but with the capability to take a 'technology agnostic' approach, and detailed understanding of dimensional data modeling, producing meaning business intelligence/data visualisations for consumption by non-technical users.

(ii) a review of the existing Business Intelligence delivery team resource. This is anticipated to include identifying skills and/or role gaps, and any potential alterations to the team's structure, in order to help the team, the BSA and the wider NHS, get the most out of the existing technology. This could include for example working with Business Intelligence delivery team to identify training needs and building additional job descriptions, where appropriate.

Additional information: See RFI on our e-tendering website at Bravo Solutions