redefining the role of it in a self-help data integration environment

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Redefining the Role of IT in a Self-Help Data Integration EnvironmentMadhuri KolluManager – Corporate Data & Analytics


• Sabre® is a technology solutions provider to the global travel and tourism industry. – Airlines, hotels, car rental outlets, railways, cruise lines and tour operators

– Travel agencies and travel management companies

– Corporate travel departments

• The company delivers a broad range of technology solutions– Data-driven business intelligence

– Mobile distribution and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions

Sabre Holdings


• As a SaaS provider to our customers we have established and maintain stringent SLAs • There are significant financial penalties to Sabre if the SLAs are not met• It is absolutely vital for Sabre Tech Operations and leadership teams to have clear visibility into

operational data• Following the implementation of a new service

platform data was not integrated between thelegacy and new systems

• Data formats between the legacy and newsystem were very different

• The tech operations team did not have a clear, unified view of the data

• A very manual and time-consuming processwas employed to generate reports

The Business Challenge Facing Sabre


• Lack of real-time or near real-time metrics• Prone to a lot of errors due to the manual nature of the process• Incomplete data because of limitations of Excel• Inconsistent data – The results really depended on which analyst

worked on preparing the results

What this Meant to our Business Operations


The Corporate Data & Analytics team set out to design a solution with the following goals:• Provide a single, unified view of the information to the business

• Provide real/near-real time data

• Enable line of business managers & executive team members to make business decisions based on one, unified set of data

• Increase data quality and consistency

• Leverage the Sabre big data platform to solve the problem

• Easy to use, intuitive interface to ensure the solution is”business-user friendly”

• A solution that is easy for IT operations to maintainand scales well with changes in the source systems

Goals of the Sabre Unification Project


• Formed a working group with business users & tools team members. • Engaged the data SMEs and identified the business process. • Mapped the business process to data elements and system of records. • We identified data objects and the specific

attributes • Prototyped solution with Cloudera/Unifi/QlikView • We used Unifi Software to aggregate data into

Cloudera data lake.• We also used Unifi to create a single business

view of the data. • Deployed this view to the business users

and C-level dashboard

The Process & Solution


Hadoop/Cloudera Data Lake

Acquire Discover Cleanse/Enrich Normalize Transform Visualize

Business User Dashboard

C-Level UserDashboard

Legacy System of Record

New System of Record

Customer Information

Product Information

Customer Call Center Data

Solution Architecture


• Unifi platform is managed by IT and facilitates self-service data integration to business users• IT connects and maintains data sources• Individual users are granted access to data sets and can specify attribute access• Intuitive, wizard-based interface is quickly learned by business users of all levels• Machine learning and fuzzy logic

anticipates user requirements• Handles a wide range of data types

including semi and unstructured data• Native Hadoop processing makes

transforms very fast • IT controls resources to ensure Hadoop

environment load

Highlights of Solution


Q&A


Redefining the Role of IT in a Self-Help Data Integration EnvironmentMadhuri KolluManager – Corporate Data & Analytics

redefining the role of it in a self-help data integration environment

Technology