Success story University of Barcelona
Identified needs
The University of Barcelona, hereinafter UB, needs to make available to the university community and UB group the different data sets generated by the university itself in its daily operations.
Given this situation, there is a clear need for a data management platform that allows data to be transformed into knowledge for strategic decision-making and for carrying out various analyses or digital transformation projects, within a framework of data democratisation.
The platform must cover the different aspects related to the data life cycle, data access and compliance with current security regulations, adapting appropriately to the UB, its specific characteristics and the continuous functional, legislative and technological changes that may arise at the UB.
In addition, the platform must guarantee:
• An attractive, intuitive, and user-friendly experience, so that any user feels comfortable using the platform.
• Interoperability, sharing and exchanging data by interconnecting different types of systems through connectors and the use of standards following the API-first principle.
• Horizontal scalability as data volume increases, along with processing and response requirements, maintaining stable performance over time, thanks to a microservices-oriented architecture.
• Adaptability to adjust to the needs and reality of UB over time, allowing for any changes to the initial parameters.
• Automation of most processes (both functional and technical) to reduce workload and manual tasks for users.
Anjana Data is the platform supporting the process, as a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution, on infrastructure managed by Anjana Data. The platform is based on the DAMA International reference framework methodology, which includes best practices and market standards, thus establishing the foundations for proper data management.
Use case
The first use case, called “Academic-Teaching”, aims to govern data assets related to students and the subjects they study.
The functionalities covered by the data perimeter defined for the use case are:
• Configuration of governance model and workflows, to implement the strategy and management model defined by the UB: roles, data domains, taxonomies, approval workflows, permissions, etc.
- Data catalogue centralised metadata repository that makes all information defining UB activities available to the UB community.
• Business glossary to make available to the UB community the agreed indicators that define the activities of the UB.
• Access to data, to facilitate the exchange of governed, high-quality information between producers and consumers in a controlled environment. It simplifies the processes of sharing information between different users.
• Data contracts through which controlled access to data and its sharing between suppliers and consumers is facilitated automatically, by signing a contract in which the user agrees to comply with certain terms and conditions.
Objectives set
The use case selected and developed at Anjana Data aims to provide UB with a platform that enables:
➤ Implement the government programme that aligns with business objectives and addresses the most relevant data management and analytics requirements.
➤ Implement the appropriate governance team structure for the data and analytics to be governed, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
➤ Implement defined procedures to enforce protocol, government policies, and promote the adoption of government initiatives.
➤ Ensure the democratisation and federation of data at the University of Barcelona.
➤ Map out the governed data lifecycle with the Anjana Data platform, enabling metrics and indicators to be obtained for subsequent iterations and use cases based on the proposed governance models and metamodel.
➤ Quickly and securely manage the various aspects related to the provision of data and information to the different authorised entities at the UB, in order to request and access them under the quality conditions established by the UB.
Functional and technical architecture
The main features of the architecture are:
• SaaS service (Software as a Service) in a private cloud, implemented for the exclusive use of the University of Barcelona and in compliance with the Organic Law and European Data Protection Regulations.
• The data platform to which you have access consists of a DWH in Oracle Cloud with several star models.
• Oracle Plugin for authentication, data sampling, automatic metadata import, and active governance (identity management and structure management from Anjana in Oracle Cloud).
• Identity manager SSO with OAuth2 for authentication: Authorisation is delegated to Anjana and managed as LDAP groups on the Oracle Cloud thanks to the plugin.
• DNS customisation by rewriting.
• Reports in Power BI where partial copies of data are made and modelled and transformed data is received. Existence of private or sensitive reports.
Benefits obtained
Once the objectives set out on the Anjana Data platform have been achieved, benefits such as the following are obtained:
• Centralise the definition and agile execution of data access policies and procedures.
• Establish governance over critical business processes, i.e., over the data that supports critical processes, decisions, or outcomes, to ensure that the programme is closely linked to improved results.
• Have a single view of all information in an orderly manner for processing and consumption.
• Communicate UB systems in a way that allows information to be exchanged in a governed manner.
• Adapt governance to the characteristics of the data, segmenting it by volume, use, value, etc., and devoting more effort to the most relevant data.
• Adopt a business-focused vision, assessing the potential benefits to be gained in different lines of business, improving user satisfaction with data quality, and establishing cause-and-effect relationships between results and data quality.
• Distinguish between tactical and strategic responsibilities, assigning strategic responsibilities to senior data owners and tactical responsibilities to mid-level experts.
• Have a proactive and preventive governance system through functionalities that enable the monitoring of relationships between all available entities using graphs, in order to manage the impact of structural changes. This makes it possible to view and analyse how data flows and behaves between different types of entities and the transformations it undergoes.
• Control access to data through a Data Marketplace. By signing data contracts, it is possible to join entities and execute access flows to the underlying information as if it were a “shopping cart”.
• Define the data governance framework, translating the decisions and models originating from the UB's governing bodies into operational realities with regard to data governance.
Challenges overcome
Both technological and strategic challenges have been overcome. Some of the most important ones are:
• Lack of resources to effectively govern the organisation's data and analytics assets.
• Resistance from managers due to a lack of clarity about the advantages of data governance, generating a “data culture”. Anjana Data has served to drive the defined governance initiatives at the UB, being considered a key and user-friendly tool by the business units to better understand the information used by the organisation. Technical and business concepts have been aligned and linked, seeking a common language for all.
• Identified ownership of data and accountability for decisions made with the data.
• Implementation of the data governance framework, where dimensions, facts and indicators used in the first use case have been inventoried, establishing basic rules and operating procedures to begin governing the information.
• Customisation of functional, organisational and technological requirements and implementation of the service provided in accordance with the demands of the University of Barcelona.
• Technological implementation: connectivity and integration tasks with systems, adapting to the UB's security policies and requirements, including all necessary configurations so that the platform can develop all its functionalities connected to the different elements of the solution.
• Implementation of a platform with multilingual capabilities, allowing simultaneous use in different languages (Catalan, Spanish, and English).