A few members of the project team (L to R): Erika Buchholz, Elizabeth Bell, Anne Marie Alexander. Not pictured: Bruce Anderson, Russ Havard, and Mark Parten.

In early July, after a long “burn-in period,” Phase III of the Emory Shared Data (ESD) project was closed. ESD is the person registry that supports the Emory identity management system.

The very first record entered into ESD was on May 11, 1992. “After 22 years, it was time to bring the service into LITS’ modern infrastructure,” said technical lead Elizabeth Bell. The ESD project was a large continuous service improvement effort that included software and hardware upgrades.

The three-year project included:

• Validation of the data requirements and associated business rules
• Database cleanup and removal of deprecated objects
• Fine tuning of processes leading to increased efficency
• Adoption of Oracle Transparent Data Encryption to ensure all sensitive data is encrypted
• Migration from DataStage version 7.5.3 to the re-architected IBM InfoSphere Information Server version 9.1.2

Overall, there was a processing improvement of approximately 30%. The team looks forward to continued service improvement efforts while maintaining high operational standards.

The project was completed approximately 39% under budget.

John Ellis, formerly Director of Integration, was the project sponsor. The Identity Management Team members were:  Anne Marie Alexander, Sr. manager along with Elizabeth Bell (technical lead, ESD Group), Erika Buchholz (ESD Group), and Russ Havard (ESD Group), Mark Parten (Oracle DBA) and Bruce Anderson (Systems).

Scott Swann was the PMO project manager for Phases I and II.  Graydon Kirk was the PMO project manager for Phase III.