About the Client:
The client, a leading global education organization, aimed to modernize its analytics and reporting framework to improve decision-making speed and operational efficiency. Their existing system relied heavily on traditional data warehouse structures that limited data freshness and slowed down Power BI report performance.
Challenge:
The client’s analytics environment faced three major challenges:
Near Real-Time Data Needs: Business users required Power BI reports that reflected data updates almost in real time.
Complex Data Warehouse Dependency: The reporting system relied on multiple ETL jobs and a physical DWH layer, causing long refresh cycles and high maintenance overhead.
Performance Bottlenecks: Power BI reports experienced latency due to complex data transformations and inefficient data pipelines.
The client needed a solution to simplify the architecture, eliminate the DWH dependency, and improve Power BI performance while ensuring near real-time data delivery.
Solution:
As the Denodo implementation partner, Right Angle Solutions (RAS) designed and implemented a logical data virtualization framework that transformed the client’s data reporting and analytics ecosystem.
Approach:
Logical Data Layer Integration
Configured OData Wrapper API calls from Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) to Denodo, creating a virtual data access layer that removed the need for a physical data warehouse.
Performance Optimization through Smart Caching
Enabled Denodo’s caching mechanism for heavy-use entities to accelerate performance while maintaining near real-time freshness.
Entities without cache were configured to fetch live data directly from D365, ensuring accurate, up-to-date reporting.
Automated Data Management
Implemented Denodo Scheduler Jobs with retry mechanisms to load data directly into Denodo’s cache database.
Configured incremental refreshes every five minutes, achieving near real-time data updates from the source system.
Enhanced Data Governance and Discovery
Deployed the Denodo Data Catalog, empowering business users to easily explore, understand, and customize available data assets for self-service analytics.
Power BI Modernization
Migrated key Power BI reports to source data directly from Denodo, following best practices to improve performance and reduce refresh times dramatically.
Monitoring and Transparency
Used Denodo REST Client APIs to retrieve scheduler job statistics and integrated these into Power BI dashboards for better visibility into job performance and system health.
Denodo Tools Utilized:
To ensure a robust, scalable, and maintainable solution, RAS leveraged multiple Denodo components across the architecture:
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Denodo Solution Manager: | Facilitated controlled deployment of code and configurations across environments (DEV → QA → UAT → PROD). |
| Denodo Diagnostics & Monitoring Tool: | Enabled continuous monitoring and analysis of requests, performance, and system usage across Denodo servers. |
| Denodo Design Studio: | Served as the core development interface for creating Virtual Databases (VDBs) and defining metadata for entities. |
| Denodo Data Catalog: | Empowered business users to explore, understand, and customize available data assets, improving data literacy across the organization. |
| Denodo Scheduler: | Managed automated, incremental, and full data loads with customizable scheduling and retry parameters for consistency and reliability. |
| Denodo REST Client API: | Provided operational insights by exposing job execution statistics and performance metrics for integration into monitoring dashboards. |
| Microsoft Power BI: | Delivered dynamic, near real-time visualizations to end-users by connecting directly to Denodo’s virtual data layer. |
| Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365): | Served as the operational data source accessed through OData APIs to feed the Denodo virtualization layer. |
Outcome:
The engagement delivered a modern, high-performing analytics framework that provided agility, transparency, and near real-time insights.
- Eliminated the DWH layer, reducing complexity and operational costs.
- Enabled near real-time data refreshes every five minutes, empowering faster decision-making.
- Improved Power BI performance, reducing latency and enhancing user experience.
- Empowered business users with a centralized data catalog for self-service analytics.
- Achieved full deployment governance with multi-environment control via Denodo Solution Manager.
- Enhanced visibility and reliability through diagnostics, monitoring, and job-level performance dashboards.
By leveraging Denodo’s data virtualization platform and its supporting tools, Right Angle Solutions (RAS) successfully helped the client transition from a static, ETL-heavy architecture to a dynamic, real-time data ecosystem—unlocking faster insights, scalability, and operational excellence.