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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Next Frontier Program?

This initiative is to establish a data-empowered culture at Boise State University to enable timely, accurate, accessible, and readily visualizable data and analytics for the campus community.

Who is guiding the Next Frontier work?

  • Christine Bauer, Associate Dean/Executive Director, eCampus
  • Kris Collins, Associate VP for Enrollment Management
  • Max Davis-Johnson, Associate VP, Chief Information Officer
  • Shari Ellertson, Senior Executive Director, Institutional Effectiveness
  • Troy Haan, Executive Director, Development & BIRS
  • Zeynep Hansen, Vice Provost for Academic Planning & Institutional Effectiveness
  • Biff Jones, Next Frontier Program Director
  • Moriah O’Kelley, Director, Business Intelligence Reporting Services
  • Matt Smith, Assistant Vice President, Research Enterprise Services
  • Gorane Stormoen, Executive Director, Office of Continuous Improvement

Why was Oracle Cloud Infrastructure chosen to host our Oracle data warehouse?

According to Gartner and Info-Tech*, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is the market leader for Cloud based Database Management Systems (DBMS). Oracle is the leader in product features, satisfaction, vendor experience and capabilities, ability to execute, and completeness of vision. The market includes Microsoft, Google, AWS, SAP, Snowflake, IBM, and others.

According to the research, the strengths of Oracle Cloud DBMS Infrastructure are:

  • High Performance and Scalability: Handles demanding workloads and future growth.
  • Security and Reliability: Robust security features and proven track record for uptime.
  • Wide Range of Functionality: Supports various workloads with built-in analytics, machine learning, and application development tools.
  • Enterprise-Grade Features: Caters to complex enterprise needs with data warehousing, high availability, and disaster recovery.
  • Integration with Oracle Cloud Ecosystem: Seamless integration simplifies data management and application development. Boise State’s Finance and HCM systems utilize the Oracle Cloud Ecosystem.

Besides being the market leader other justifications for Boise State choosing Oracle Cloud DBMS Infrastructure include:

  • Leveraging Existing Expertise: Boise State’s familiarity with Oracle products translates to faster deployment, reduced training costs, and improved development efficiency benefiting both OIT and Boise State end-users..
  • Optimizing Licensing Costs: Existing Boise State Oracle licensing agreements can extend to cover cloud deployments, offering cost savings.
  • Third-Party Tools: Many third-party tools can connect to Oracle databases and provide data analysis and visualization capabilities. Beside built-in Oracle tools, some popular options include Tableau, Power BI, MicroStrategy, and Domo.
  • Reduced System Administration and Management Burden: Oracle Cloud DBMS as a managed service minimizes the Office of Information Technology’s workload on database administration tasks.
  • Mitigating Migration Risks: Maintaining the same database platform reduces migration complexity and risks associated with switching vendors. We are currently migrating our on-premise Oracle Data Warehouse DBMS to Oracle Cloud DBMS. See above.

Oracle Cloud DBMS Infrastructure presents a compelling and conclusive choice for our cloud-based DBMS needs, especially with existing Oracle expertise and licensing.

* The Gartner Group and Info-Tech Research Group are both IT research and advisory firms that help clients make informed technology decisions. The Gartner and Info-Tech research allows us to do a side by side comparison of leading cloud based database vendors and products.