Large Clinical Research Organization Accelerates Data Modernization with Superior Cost Savings

The Company

The Fortune 1,000 healthcare giant stands as a premier provider of pharmaceutical solutions, holding the esteemed position of one of the three largest Clinical Research Organizations (CROs) worldwide. The organization has played a pivotal role in the development of 95% of the top 200 best-selling pharmaceuticals globally. The company is deeply committed to delivering a comprehensive suite of clinical development services, with the overarching goal of accelerating the delivery of lifesaving treatments to patients. By harnessing their extensive clinical, regulatory, and therapeutic expertise, their team of over 21,000 professionals globally passionately collaborates with leaders in biopharmaceuticals and emerging innovators and clinical sites to design and conduct patient-centric clinical trials.

The Challenge

As one of the leading Clinical Research Organizations in the world, the company is committed to enhancing its clinical development services across the entire pharmaceutical lifecycle. The organization is embarking on the next phase of growth, which involves a strategic focus on better utilization of its data assets.

In the past four years, they have significantly transformed their technology strategy. This includes shifting towards cloud migration of legacy workloads to harness the innovation potential. As part of this technological overhaul, they are transitioning away from a substantial on-premises application and database footprint that has been developed over two decades. These environments heavily rely on Oracle Databases and applications, which are integral to most of their business operations.

Currently, the company is facing a relocation of approximately 400 Oracle Databases from its existing data centers. They evaluated the feasibility of migrating these databases, along with their associated applications, to Azure. This move is anticipated to streamline operations and foster a more agile and innovative technological framework within the organization.

Proof of Concept

Tessell, a Microsoft Premier Oracle on Azure Partner, was engaged to provide a Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution, demonstrating a superior total cost of ownership that would reduce expenditures on Oracle licenses and outsourced Database Administrator costs.

The Tessell team, in collaboration with Oracle GBB and in partnership with Azure Infra, Data & App Modernization HLS STU teams, formed a robust virtual team (V-team) to thoroughly understand the customer’s migration challenges and objectives for a data modernization strategy on Azure.

A series of comprehensive technical deep dives were conducted, encompassing database, data, security, architecture, and cloud aspects, to ascertain the company’s specific requirements and to devise a current versus proposed Oracle on Azure architecture.

With their robust in-house Azure teams, the emphasis shifted towards transitioning Oracle to Azure while also considering the potential transition from Oracle to SQLServer or PostgreSQL.

The Solution

The “Lift & Shine” initiative is a strategic endeavor by the company to transition their Oracle footprint from the data center to Azure. This comprehensive process includes:

• Discovery: This phase involves evaluating timelines, scope, and detailed data on the Oracle estate to propose potential infrastructure and migration solutions.
• Assessment: Tessell provided a total cost of ownership comparison, projecting savings of up to 30-40% on licensing and a reduction of up to 70-80% in outsourced labor contracts.
• Pilot: Tessell proposed a 12-month paid pilot that allowed the company to:some text
  1. Align with teams and work already in progress.
  2. Realize some cost savings over 12 months before committing to a more significant expenditure.
  3. Acclimate to the Tessell platform and the pace of change.

Additional benefits realized by the healthcare company include:

• The deal was secured by ensuring application performance during the transition to the cloud, which involved maintaining proximity between application and database servers. This strategy allowed for a single cloud environment to manage workloads effectively.
• The joint effort between Tessell and Microsoft. The collaboration between Microsoft’s GBB and Specialist Team and Tessell presented a unified message to the customer, highlighting the benefits of Oracle on Azure and the data modernization journey ahead.

The Results

• Tessell’s 12-month pilot served as a foundational platform during the Oracle to Azure migration, demonstrating the anticipated total cost of ownership (TCO) savings. The savings exceeded expectations, with over 30% on Oracle licenses and over 70% on third-party support costs.
• This strategic initiative enabled the healthcare giant to consolidate applications and databases within a single cloud environment, streamlining operations and enhancing efficiency.
• Furthermore, the reliance on outsourced labor was significantly reduced as Tessell’s automation capabilities rendered many existing maintenance contracts obsolete.
• The opportunity to exit Oracle seeded on Azure into SQLServer or PostgreSQL presents a massive savings opportunity in the future that aligns with the company’s strategic plans.