Case studies
New visionary data platform has reduced time-to-market and increased efficiency significantly
Development, migration, and decommissioning of the previous on-premises solution was all done in just five months.
PFA is Denmark’s largest commercial pension company with 1.3 million private customers, 6,000 corporate and organizational customers, and approx. 1.500 employees, PFA is an independent company founded in 1917 by the social partners to create mobility in the Danish labor market and secure pensions for those who can no longer work. Its DNA is to be socially responsible, which means that in addition to creating value for their customers, PFA also contributes to sustainable social development.
The challenge
The investment organization in PFA faced a number of challenges with their existing data platform, which was based on an on-premises installation of Microsoft SQL Server.
Integrations with third-party systems were slow, often entailing a complicated process that requries many different parties to be involved. In addition, there was an increasing demand for new functionality and improvements to the platform, which were very often delayed or could not be implemented at all due to platform limitations. Therefore, the investment organization in PFA wanted to modernize the data platform to meet growing needs and demands as well as to take advantage of the cloud-based technologies.
“cVation [part of Skaylink] assisted us creating a visionary and future-proof solution which, in short, significantly reduced our time-to-market and increased our efficiency considerably.”
The solution
The new data platform, PAM Data Hub, is a modern cloud-based solution built in the Microsoft Azure Cloud. The solution includes CI/CD pipeline management to ensure continuous integration and delivery of data analytics solutions, as well as automation of testing, implementation and monitoring processes.
In addition, robust infrastructure management was established to ensure availability, performance, and security of the Azure infrastructure components such as Synapse SQL databases, Azure Analysis Services and Azure Function App.
PAM Data Hub now functions as the investment organization’s internal data warehouse, which supports all reporting and data analysis and ensures “one source of truth” across the business areas. The platform also includes orchestration tools, computation servers and front-end tools.
“In addition to cVation’s [part of Skaylink] ability to meet our high demands for security, reliability and scalability, they also have inspired us to gain new agile methods which now connects PFA’s investment and IT organizations and make us work closer together. It is of great value to us.”
The result
The implementation of the PAM Data Hub has resulted in several benefits for PFA in several different areas.
Technical advantages:
Reliable data pipelines: CI/CD pipelines ensure that data pipelines are reliable and deliver data in a timely manner to end users or downstream systems.
Scalability and flexibility: The solution leverages Azure’s scalability capabilities, enabling it to handle increasing data volumes and adapt to changing business needs.
Improved data security: Data is stored and processed in accordance with PFA’s security practices, including encryption, access control ,and governance.
Business benefits:
Up-to-date functionality: The investment organization avoids overcomplicated solutions and, on the contrary, achieves a lower degree of maintenance, less specialist knowledge and thus personal dependence and, on top of that, a much shorter time-to-market.
Scalability and flexibility: Azure offers scalability features, and the solution leverages these to ensure that the data infrastructure can handle increasing data volumes, varying “opening hours”, and adapt to changing business needs.
Modern cloud technology: Makes it possible to avoid code duplication and thus greater reuse of code, smaller amounts of code and far more fully automated processes and automated testing.
Higher efficiency: With the help of automation, you can avoid a number of “middlemen” and costly intermediaries. This achieves a saving in resources, a simplification of the system and approach, and thus greater productivity and higher efficiency.
Automated processes: By automating processes and optimizing pipelines, the time it takes to turn raw data into actionable insights is reduced.
Stronger employer branding: All of this has also strengthened the investment organization’s employer branding, as employees now have access to modern tools and thus an even more attractive workplace.
Overall cross-cutting benefits for PFA:
A common platform: Common sense of ownership and starting point – better collaboration. The business and IT have weekly stand-up meetings of approx. 10 minutes.
Everyone has their “finger” on the pulse and shared responsibility. The simplified processes have resulted in a high degree of operational stability since initiation.
Reduced time-to-market by automating processes and optimizing pipelines.
The implementation of PAM Data Hub has thus not only solved the existing challenges, but also well positioned PFA’s investment organization for future development, increasing demands, and growth.
PFA’s data platform has been developed with Microsoft’s technology and data services such as:
Data platform
Azure Synapse
Azure Analysis Services
Azure functions
Infrastructure / CI/CD
Azure Cloud PaaS & IaaS services
Azure DevOps & pipelines
Bicep
Other successful projects from Skaylink
Increased level of security for Ensinger
Skaylink uses AI to analyze large quantities of data for IMWF
