Using Enterprise Architecture to Attain Full Benefits from Corporate Big Data while Refurbishing Legacy Work Systems

Thomas Köhler, Steven Alter
2016 Conference on Business Informatics  
In early 2011 DHL Express, a division of the Deutsche Post DHL Group, concluded that the core infrastructure of its European Country Data Warehouse system (CDW) was approaching a crisis. Vendors for its operating system, hardware, middleware, and database management systems announced that those technologies had become obsolete and that support for those technologies would end in the near term future. This paper explains how DHL converted the crisis into an opportunity to create a
more » ... d and easily maintainable basis for future development of new capabilities that would benefit both DHL's customers and DHL's internal operations. Where possible without unnecessary complications, this complex project improved existing capabilities. This paper provides background about DHL and the type of operational data that would have to be migrated to a new infrastructure. It describes the project, with special emphasis on how DHL leveraged its enterprise architecture and also assured that each user group would fully understand the functionality they would receive. That functionality would have to be at least as good as the existing functionality, and often much better, without creating customer service problems during the transition. The paper ends with lessons learned and concluding comments.
dblp:conf/wecwis/KoehlerA16 fatcat:ik7z7jkoajcfvkryo2zyp5jxtq