Two-tier cloud data warehouse for lower TCO

For a news organization, data growth was becoming an issue for the corporate data warehouse. With OmniArcs (informed by our Full 360 heritage), they envisioned moving from a single vendor to a multi‑tier data warehouse architecture.

THE PROBLEM IS COST

Data growth and integrating new data sources, while essential to the businesses, made planning and maintaining systems a challenge. Further, as data warehousing needs increased, the client was exposed to increased licensing costs.

In a strategic planning and proof‑of‑concept engagement, OmniArcs evaluated the current system’s architecture and proposed methods to optimize licensing and infrastructure for predictable budgeting.

THE SOLUTION IS ARCHITECTURE

A data warehouse using Redshift for large amounts of source data, while storing only key tables and aggregates in a columnar database.

This approach accommodates ad-hoc analysis on large datasets (Redshift) while still facilitating high performance dashboards and reporting (Vertica). It leverages the strengths of each platform and protects the existing Vertica license investment—so that licensing could be managed carefully to support predicted expansion.

We presented a total cost of ownership model demonstrating a terabyte of data cycling through the two tiers. This aligns with our strategy of leveraging cloud‑native architectures to right‑size solutions.

THE BENEFIT IS SAVINGS

With OmniArcs, the team could clearly envision moving workloads from dependency on a single vendor to a multi‑tier collaboration using proprietary and open‑source software.

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In addition to more efficient licensing, the client benefits from having a cloud-powered system. The cloud offers scalability, so that additional resources can be provisioned immediately, whenever needed. Compared to an on-site system, the difference in flexibility is startling.

This combined approach drove substantial savings; over a 10 year period, we projected that this client could alleviate as much as 71% of licensing and computing infrastructure expenses.