Robert Barkalow
Data Warehouse Architect and DBA
Projects
With a focus on clients' strategic data needs, projects tend to be both high-visibility and mission-critical in nature. The following is a cross-section of a few of these projects. For a comprehensive list of projects and clients, please refer to the full resume.
- Porex Corporation - Data Warehouse Architect - 12/2007 - Current - Lead architect and developer for the design and implementation of a financial reporting data warehouse for an international plastics manufacturer. This successful project included multi-national support of forecast, budget and actual financials at the product and customer levels.
Project responsibilities included creating the logic to extract transaction-level details from Oracle Financials' Materials and Inventory modules. Data cleansing transformations were delivered using PL/SQL to normalize data between the planning system, Oracle, and a second accounting system used by one overseas manufacturing plant.
The data warehouse was implemented in Oracle 11g. Planning data was extracted from Cognos Enterprise Planning product suite, and reporting/BI functionality was delivered through data base views and Oracle Discoverer. - Emdeon Corporation - Data Warehouse Architect - 3/2005 - 3/2008 - Lead architect for the design and implementation of a consolidated financial reporting system. This successful project provided the Board of Directors, CFO(s) and line managers with detailed insights to budget, forecast and actual financial results.
The system was implemented using traditional data warehousing techniques (star schema, data cleansing ETL, dimension and hierarchy maintenance), as well as Cognos' Enterprise Planning suite for maintaining a rolling 12-month annual forecast. Reporting and business intelligence were delivered through Cognos ReportNet, PowerPlay and Cognos Contributor.
In 2006 Emdeon Corporation sold significant portions of their holdings to two separate companies. Evidence of the business value of this integrated financial planning and reporting system is shown by it being physically replicated and included in the terms of sale for both of these legal entities. In one case, this included the successful port of the full data base environment and ETL processes to SQL Server 2005. - Macmillan, formerly Holtzbrinck Publishing - Data Warehouse Specialist (Oracle) - 1/2005 - Current - On-going support and ETL development for an Oracle 10g data warehouse. Two high-visibility projects in the recent past illustrate the type of project work performed for this client. All processes are integrated within a long-standing data warehouse environment.
One challenge facing Macmillan was to improve the cost-effectiveness of their supply chain in regard to secondary print/bind quantities. This was satisfied by creating weekly activity profiles, by title, for all active titles. Once the data from multiple sources (inventory, sales, returns, etc) was consolidated, Cognos ReportNet provided a focused view of the true enterprise-wide position for a title.
A second challenge centered on measuring profitability at a title level, which was achieved by creating interfaces to a new implementation of Hyperion Financials HAL. Similar to the supply Chain effort, this required integrating measures from multiple sources and providing these to the Hyperion BI engine as part of the monthly close. - Arch Insurance - Data Warehouse Specialist - 11/2004 - 2/2005 - Arch's Senior Actuary required detailed ad-hoc query capabilities against a broad range of premium/claim data, spanning several years of history. The initially-implemented SQL-Server "flat" data base design had reached critical limits in its ability to support this need, and so a multi-dimensional Oracle schema was prescribed.
A feasability prototype was desired, and a one-man project "team" was established, reporting directly to IT's Vice President and the Actuary. In a short time, a star schema was designed, dimensions were established and an ETL interface (Informatica, PL/SQL) was completed. Cognos Enterprise PowerPlay provided the BI mechanism to the Actuary. - Emdeon Corporation (WebMD) - Data Warehouse Specialist - 3/2004 - 10/2004 - Corporate DBA role with responsibility for stabilizing existing data base systems, creating new applications and data marts, as well as crafting a strategic approach to long-term data management.
Specific achievements include:
Created project approach and enterprise data model for capture of all health claim transaction data elements based on X12N 837/4010 standards.
Stabilized existing Operational Data Store to meet performance and availability requirements in the creation of real-time, daily and monthly customer reports.
Designed and implemented replicated data mart to provide self-service customer tracking of submitted files and claims.
System Characteristics:
2 TB Oracle 8i ODS
750 GB Oracle 9i Data Mart
Procedural Replication via Advanced Replication Services
- Arch Capital Group Insurance - Technical Project Lead - 3/2003 - 3/2004 - Implemented 12 third-party interfaces to a legacy accounting system in an aggressive business-critical timeframe. Designed, coded and implemented claim and policy data feeds to a commercial insurance accounting system (WINS) to comply with auditor mandates. Performed functions of technical project lead, application DBA and designer, as well as hands-on coding of shell scripts, PL/SQL procedures and DataJunction conversions.
This project was particularly notable for its high corporate visibility, its successful delivery of all data feeds/interfaces within required timeframes, and its completion without sacrificing operational robustness or data integrity.
System Characteristics:
Batch interfaces using korn shell, PL/SQL, DataJunction.
Java/Oracle JDBC as wrapper function to augment DataJunction.
Generic file handler built on ssh2 protocol for secure third-party file transmission.
In-house developed PL/SQL procedures for process control, monitoring and tracking.
100 GB Oracle 9i DBMS
- Prudential - Project Manager - 6/2002 - 3/2003 - Business analysis, design, development and deployment of application for tracking audit compliance of New York Regulation 60 requirements. Performed roles of project lead, business analyst, application DBA and system architect, with full responsibility for:
User requirements analysis and definition
Logical and physical data model and data base creation
Data quality assurance
- Holtzbrinck Publishing - Data Warehouse Specialist - 1/2002 - 8/2002 - Performed extensive upgrade and overhaul to an existing data warehouse system, improving the tracking and reporting of title sales and profitability across publishing divisions and sales organizations.
Specific tasks included:
Cognos upgrade to Enterprise Series 7
Consolidation of fragmented IWR catalogs
Port of Oracle data base to larger platform and upgrade to 9i
System Characteristics:
80 GB Oracle DBMS
Cognos Impromptu, IWR and PowerPlay
In-house developed ETL procedures - Prudential - Data Warehouse Specialist - 8/2000 - 12/2001 - Two separate engagements during this period.
The first supported the monthly financial reporting and analysis requirements for the Guaranteed Products division. Within small development team performed lead role of data analyst, modeler and DBA. Delivered full system including data extraction, transformation and presentation layers.
The second project was for the Life/Annuities division. Designed, developed and deployed ad-hoc reporting system to satisfy state and internal audit requirements for annuity payment streams. Performed role of Project Manager with full responsibility for identifying and satisfying current and future business information requirements.
System Characteristics:
Three data sources, spanning historical (sunset) and current systems
40 GB Oracle 8i DBMS
Oracle Discoverer to provide ad-hoc reporting capabilities
- Volvo Cars, NA - Data Warehouse Project Manager - 5/2000 - 10/2000 - Management consulting position requiring extensive technical data warehouse implementation knowledge. Led team of contractors and employees in creation of business case, project plan and requirements definition for Marketing data warehouse.
Accomplishments included:
Developed business justification for project funding.
Led requirements definition phase based on regional input.
Created project plan, staffing model and preliminary architecture and design.
System Characteristics:
5 initial sources spanning AS/400, OS/390 and AIX hosts
120 GB Oracle 8i DBMS
In-house front-end for delivery of initial set of standard reports
WebIntelligence 2.6 selected for OLAP data analysis
- Liz Claiborne, Inc. - Data Warehouse Specialist - 3/1999 - 5/2000 - Stabilized a failing data warehouse application. Resolved critical issues included poor data integrity, inadequate hardware capacity and a lack of basic operational procedures such as error handling and performance monitoring. Within 9 months, all of these issues were addressed and resolved.
Specific accomplishments include:
Ported Oracle7 database to a higher capacity HP-UX V2200. This effort included upgrades to Oracle8 and HP-UX 11, as well as extensive reconfiguration of underlying EMC disk storage.
Replaced 80% of the batch application code to automate scheduling, trap application errors and capture data integrity errors. Extensive coding and testing in Pro*C, PL/SQL and Korn Shell.
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