University of Illinois System

Next Generation Data Analytics Platform

The Next Generation Data Analytics Platform will provide better integration, sharing, and collaboration of data. This website maps out the implementation of the new analytics platform.

Project Milestones

Project timeline showing progress at Q1 in FY2025. Relevant current projects are the conversion of business objects to new semantic layer standard and the continued migration of ETL maps to Talend. In Q3 to Q4, Data Lakes will be implemented.

Data Analytics Platform News

New Data Integration Capabilities Using Data Virtualization with Denodo

The Denodo application is in production. More information is available on the Get Started - DataHub webpage.

Logical Data Warehouse

The Logical Data Warehouse (LDW) will be available starting November 14.

Universe Conversions Will Start in January

Watch for email and other important information coming soon.

New Enterprise Azure Data Lake Service with Microsoft Azure

Work continues to build and deploy the Enterprise Data Lake Service.

New Data Movement Capabilities with Talend

Installation, configuration, and testing for the Talend solution are in progress. We have successfully used Talend for data integration processes in a test environment.

Enterprise Reporting

  • We successfully upgraded SAP Business Objects to version 4.3 the weekend of March 25, 2023.
  • Planning has started on the effort to migrate Business Objects Universes to a new format. This change is mandatory as the old format is being phased out. Building and refreshing reports in Web Intelligence will function the same. There will be some initial setup steps for existing reports. This new format provides new capabilities for supporting the reporting solutions provided in Business Objects.

Goals

Enable the University of Illinois System to become more data driven

Provide better integration and sharing of enterprise and unit data

Support more optimized data processing

New Analytics Platform

The new Analytics Platform is made up of three layers. 1 - Data Delivery; 2 - Data Fabric or logical data layer. 3 - Physical data storage.

Data Delivery

Data delivery tools allow data analysts to interact with data to gain insights. Tools in the data delivery layer allow you to create, view, and share reports and data visualizations and perform data analysis. This layer also includes ad hoc reporting and standardardized reports.

Data Fabric – Logical Data Layer

The data fabric provides access to data and allows for advanced data integration. Access to physical data is available or data analysts can create virtual data sets. It allows for data integration, collaboration, and curation.

Physical Data Storage

Physical Data Storage is where the data is hosted. The modern physical data storage provides source data, data lineage, structured data for reporting, and unstructured data for analysis.

Next Generation Tools

Next Generation Tools
Tool Type Current State Future State Future Hosting
Reporting SAP Business Objects 4.2 SAP Business Objects 4.3 On-Premise
Data Virtualization None Denodo On-Premise
Data Lake None Microsoft Azure Software as a Service
Data Movement Informatica Power Center Talend Software as a Service

Data Architecture Roadmap

Data Analytics Architecture Roadmap, October 2022

The Data Analytics Architecture Roadmap contains recommendations on technologies and specific tools to implement for the next generation data architecture. The roadmap addresses the following technologies:

  • Data Virtualization
  • Data Storage (Data Lakes and Data Warehouses)
  • Data Movement (ETL tools)
  • Data Visualization and Reporting
  • Data Science

View Report