The Data Architecture Center of Excellence (DACoE) is Cognizant's go-to team for expertise and competitive edge in the areas of Data Architecture, High Availability and Disaster Recovery Solutions, Database Consolidation and Migration, Data Modeling, Database Performance Tuning, Operational Readiness, Infrastructure Assessment, Server and Storage Consolidation and Monitoring. It is an expert group that is continuously engaged in enabling the organization and customers by implementing cutting-edge database technologies and techniques through research, testing and proof-of-concepts.

At the core of DACoE's ability to support and build organizational knowledge is a strong emphasis on fundamental understanding of Data Architecture concepts.

Some results DACoE has produced for its Clients:

• Industrialized MySQL Cluster to achieve 32,000 updates and 50,000 queries per second.
• Performance tuned a production database with 15 TB of data to process 70 million rows in less than 4 hours, using pipeline, analytical functions, multi-insert and exchange partition on Oracle 9i.
• For a degrading database using a COTS replication tool, the DACoE recommended asynchronous replication vs. synchronous replication, scaling it up to meet 3,500 users, though initially designed for 600.
• Simultaneous migration of 3 SQL Servers from 32-bit to 64-bit platforms with 3 TB of data.
• Conducted Oracle RAC stress-testing in DACOE's lab to help Client determine if it could meet NFR requirements, before a purchase decision was made.
• Reduced stored procedure runtime from 1.25 hours to 19 minutes through re-engineering and temp table design.
• Helped a retail client meet SLA by tuning its Data Warehousing batch process to collect daily sales data from 550 stores across 30 countries in under 24 hours.
• Design of Data Mart to meet Basel II compliance and Architecture to interface with 20+ Applications.

While all databases still have the 4 basic operations (Insert, Select, Update, Delete) ever since Codd's path-breaking work spawned RDBMS technologies, only a minority of organizations leverage its full set of powers by figuring out the best techniques to apply these operations and more importantly, creating an environment that ensures its benefits are available to the entire Organization that needs the data. It is this critical function that the DACOE enables an Organization to achieve through well structured data models,intelligent database design and planning suitable support infrastructure (sizing,high availability,disaster - recovery).

Value Proposition as Technology Specialists

The Data Architecture CoE serves as a single point of reference for expertise in the entire value chain of information storage and retrieval. It has been called in for Infrastructure Assessments, preparing Database Consolidation strategies, EDM and High Availability planning and conducting Proof of Concepts for unique requirements demanding a non-conventional approach or even to ensure that the solutions that vendors themselves have proposed will meet expectations, especially in the case of new, untested features.

The DACoE refreshes itself through constant involvement in Research & Development on product offerings in these technologies and partners with market leaders to provide the most appropriate solution to its customers.

Engagement Levels

• Onsite Consulting
• Offshore Support
• End-to-End Implementation
• Proof-of-Concept Implementation in DACoE's offshore facilities
• Infrastructure Assessment & Performance Simulation

Additionally, the CoE's Data Architects are called in for expert services in predominantly business application implementation projects to scale up the database to meet NFRs, migrate data, and tune performance.

Specialist Expertise Areas