Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/50188
A Case Study on Connecting with the Cloud by Perry Lawrence, Senior Data Integration Architect at O'Melveny & Myers LLP O 48 Tech Potpourri ur firm's IT strategy focuses on delivering the best quality service to our end users, including our lawyers, staff and clients. We work to leverage new and emerging technologies that can add measurable value. Today, cloud-based software increasingly fits this bill, offering easier administration, upgrading and streamlining of IT operations. But successfully implementing a remote solution was definitely a learning experience. Evaluating Options As we began to explore cloud solutions, we made the decision to implement a cloud-based human resources system. The software we chose was Workday Human Capital Management. As part of making that decision, we needed to ensure the solution satisfied two key criteria: • It had to meet the functional requirements of the HR organization. ILTA White Paper • It had to utilize a transport methodology for data integration that would connect to our existing business processes and applications with the same ease that any other on-premises system would provide. Since this was our first major application to move to the cloud, data integration was a significant issue. Our existing HR database was internal and SQL-based, so our database administrators had quick and easy data access using familiar tools and techniques. However, with the move to this emerging technology, new challenges also emerged, with the biggest being the questions of how we would exchange data with the new system and how we would convert its data into formats with which we could work. Our Existing Data Architecture Like many firms, we have centralized and standardized our internal data integration design, development and management on a single platform, using Integration Builder from IntApp. It offers us several advantages