Completed migration of Oracle Database, which is the business infrastructure, in about 1/2 the time of the previous migration
Improved reliability by using recovery verification results as third-party evidence

INTAGE Healthcare Inc. (hereafter, INTAGE Healthcare), a provider of marketing research and CRO (contract research organization) services in the healthcare field, has completed a smooth and quick migration of its Oracle Database using the "Database Quick Migration Service" provided by NTT DATA INTELLILINK Corporation (hereafter, NTT DATA INTELLILINK) along with the migration of its business system. In addition, "recovery verification" was also conducted to gain knowledge on recovery and obtain objective evidence for customers.

Customer Profile

Man-hours and cost for system migration including databases are the issues

INTAGE Healthcare positions marketing research in the healthcare field, support for drug development, post-marketing surveillance, and safety operations as its core business, and provides solutions for the issues that support optimal decision-making by creating value for the data from the "medical consumer" perspective.

IT is an indispensable foundation for the company, which provides information by creating value from the perspective of medical consumer. The company developed its own business system around 2003, and it has repeatedly migrated each time according to the life cycle of the OS, database, and hardware since then. There were major migrations in 2006 and 2014. The system migration in 2014 includes a hardware refresh, as well as the migration of the OS from Windows Server 2003 to 2008 and the migration of database from Oracle Database 10g to 11g.

Hideki Ishikawa, IT Promotion Group, Corporate Planning Division, INTAGE Healthcare, said, "Initially, we built our system on Windows, but then we started using Linux, and during the migration in 2014, we extensively considered changing the OS and using cloud services. In the end, we migrated without changing the logic as much as possible, but the verification process was time-consuming and costly, so system migration had been a long-standing issue". He says the system migration in 2014 took about six months, including the final verification.

And now, before the end of support for Windows Server 2008 and Oracle Database 11g, the company is considering how to migrate the applicable systems efficiently at low cost.

The database quick migration service of NTT DATA INTELLILINK selected for its response capability

After extensive consideration of this migration, including hardware refresh and the use of Oracle Cloud and Oracle VM, we decided to migrate using existing assets.

INTAGE Healthcare operates two main systems for research service. One is a system of receiving paper survey slips such as fax, entering data internally, and performing data management task. The second is an EDC system, in which physicians are asked to fill out a survey directly via the Internet. The former is the Windows Server 2008 and Oracle Database 11g configuration system that was migrated in 2014 and is the target of migration this time. And the latter EDC system was configured with Red Hat Linux and Oracle Database 12c when it was initially built.

This asset will be used to integrate the database of the system used for entering paper survey results into the EDC database. In other words, the company decided to move from Windows Server 2008 and Oracle Database 11g to Red Hat Linux and Oracle Database 12c. "We were operating and managing Oracle OFS and Oracle RAC at the same time, so we decided to use this configuration to eliminate the complexity and achieve a cost-effective migration," said Ishikawa.

NTT DATA INTELLILINK was selected as the partner to support the transition. "We had asked partners experienced in Oracle to assist us in our previous migrations, but we chose Database Quick Migration Service of NTT DATA INTELLILINK based on their proposal that fully addressed our requirements," said Ishikawa.

Highly appreciated flexibility that goes beyond mere database migration

"With the extensive support from NTT DATA INTELLILINK, we could eliminate issues one by one and smoothly migrate to the Oracle Database. Thank you very much for your help."

INTAGE Healthcare Inc.
IT Promotion Group, Corporate Planning Division
Hideki Ishikawa

"Database Quick Migration Service" of NTT DATA INTELLILINK proposes an optimal migration plan through an assessment service and provides active support from preliminary preparation to migration work and after-sales follow-up service. It provides consistent support for Oracle Database migration, including instance creation, parameter information migration, migration rehearsal (demonstration test), data migration, and post-migration verification work.

The migration work was performed by remote access to the data center where the system was installed. However, Mr. Ishikawa recalls that several issues were found during the verification process. "The original system had been in use for a long time and had many legacy parts. We also had to consider what to do with functions that had been dependent on Windows because of the change in OS from Windows Server to Red Hat Linux, and we struggled in these areas. However, with generous support from NTT DATA INTELLILINK , we could eliminate the issues one by one and complete the migration smoothly. That really helped us a lot." said Ishikawa, who highly appreciated response of NTT DATA INTELLILINK.

The migration was completed in approximately three months by using a migration service that optimized the procedure based on the expertise and knowledge accumulated by NTT DATA INTELLILINK to date. The migration was completed in a shorter time than before. "The previous migration took about six months, so we were able to complete the database migration in about half that time. What was particularly helpful in using the migration service this time was that the NTT DATA INTELLILINK not only migrated the database, but also provided extensive support for the integration with the internal systems beyond migration. Even if the database migration itself is done without any problem and the system itself is working properly, problems often occur in the integration with other systems. NTT DATA INTELLILINK has a rick expertise and experience in this area, and when we encountered problems with other internal systems during this migration, they isolated the problems and even provided us with verification method. We could complete the migration in such a short time as the database migration process as well as the subsequent verification could be carried out smoothly. I really appreciate the flexibility of NTT DATA INTELLILINK," says Ishikawa.

Accumulating knowledge on recovery and obtaining objective evidence for customers

After the migration was completed, NTT DATA INTELLILINK proposed various services to further improve the database operational manageability. From these services, INTAGE Healthcare adopted the "Recovery Verification" service. Recovery Verification service provided by NTT DATA INTELLILINK verifies the restore/recovery process to be executed during emergency in advance, and supports the recovery process at ease even in the "worst" scenario.

INTAGE Healthcare conducts a restore/recovery verification once each year, which also serves as in-house training. This time, due to system changes and to accumulate further knowledge about recovery of Oracle Database 12c, NTT DATA INTELLILINK decided to conduct a recovery verification. Although INTAGE Healthcare conducts this verification in-house every year, having a trusted company such as NTT DATA INTELLILINK evaluate our services as a third party will provide evidence of the reliability and safety of our services. Since our customers are mainly pharmaceutical companies, more solid evidence is required. We can confidently present this as an answer to that question," said Ishikawa, explaining the significance of conducting the recovery verification.

This recovery verification was not compared with services provided by other vendors. "We had confidence in NTT DATA INTELLILINK because of the previous database migration, and we were satisfied with the proposal in terms of cost performance, so there was no need to consider anyone else," says Ishikawa.

The verification process confirmed that the recovery is completed without any problem using the existing backup files in the system and prepared procedures in case database recovery was required.

"This will allow us to confirm the results internally based on the findings of this verification," said Ishikawa.

Low-cost and efficient switching of OS, database, and hardware

INTAGE Healthcare completed an Oracle Database migration using Database Quick Migration Service and Recovery Verification. From the proposal to the actual work and subsequent support, Ishikawa appreciated NTT DATA INTELLILINK saying that "I am fully satisfied with the technical capabilities, cost, and flexibility".

INTAGE Healthcare will continue to improve IT as the foundation of its business by ensuring stable system operation, improving operational efficiency, and reducing cost. Mr. Ishikawa concluded his remarks by saying, "For example, the extended life cycle support for Red Hat Linux that we are currently using will expire in 2024, so we will need to migrate our OS. As we switch between various life cycles of operating systems, databases, hardware, the period of connection is particularly important, and we must consider how much efficiently and safely we can connect them without incurring costs. We look forward to continued proposal and support from NTT DATA INTELLILINK".

NTT DATA INTELLILINK will continue to actively support INATGE Healthcare in solving various IT issues it faces, not limited to databases.

From the Project Manager

Database Quick Migration Service/Recovery Verification Service Sales Representative

We are relieved to hear that you are satisfied after using our Database Quick Migration Service and Recovery Verification Service. We believe that we could meet INTAGE Healthcare's demands reliably with good response through collaboration between sales and engineering. We look forward to continue working with INTAGE Healthcare on various issues such as system upgrade. We will continue to develop customer-oriented services and hope to have a long-lasting relationship with you.

Infrastructure Solutions Division, NTT DATA INTELLILINK Corporation
Daisaku Ozawa, Sales Representative, Oracle Division

Database Quick Migration Service/Recovery Verification Service Sales Representative

The database migration performed for INTAGE Healthcare this time also involved a change in OS and Oracle Database version. We provided comprehensive support, including preliminary verification by preparing samples of each object type with the same version, rehearsals using the development environment, and repeated rehearsals using backup data acquired during normal operation in the production environment. When environment-specific problems occurred, we studied and selected a tentative solution based on the error content, avoided the incidents, and reported the investigation results.

Infrastructure Solutions Division, NTT DATA INTELLILINK Corporation
Takuya Kanno, Sales Representative, Oracle Division

Technical Manager, Database Quick Migration Service/Recovery Verification Service

For the recovery verification, we reorganized the past verification records and the objectives of the tests, and proposed to rearrange the plan to be more generous about high priority test contents. The confirmation items are organized so that the contents can be used as a reference for the next and subsequent activities. Since some of the events occurred on that day were different from what we expected, we examined additional procedures based on the details of the errors, clarified the differences from the existing procedures, and incorporated the errors into the procedures.

Infrastructure Solutions Division, NTT DATA INTELLILINK Corporation
Akira Nagase, Technical Manager, Oracle Division

Technical Manager, Database Quick Migration Service

In this database quick migration service, we used Oracle Data Pump, a standard feature of Oracle, to perform the data migration. We mainly checked the procedures and verified them in our verification environment. Since the migration was between different platforms and versions, we conducted several rehearsals on site after consulting with the customer to ensure that everything was in order. As a result, we could complete the work as planned without any major problem on the day of the production migration. We will continue to improve our service to further satisfy our customers by performing as many tasks as possible that need to be handled by customers.

Infrastructure Solutions Division, NTT DATA INTELLILINK Corporation
Yuichi Uchida, Technical Manager, Oracle Division

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