Customer Overview:

The Al Rostamani Group (ARG) is one of the largest and oldest business conglomerates in the United Arab Emirates. With a history spanning over 50 years, the group has grown steadfastly and conscientiously under the guiding principles of commitment, care, and vision. ARG’s diverse business portfolio includes automotive, real estate, construction, and retail industries.

Untangling the Web of Data Challenges

The Al Rostamani Group faced a tangled web of data challenges, struggling with siloed information, complex data transfers, and security concerns that hindered their ability to make informed decisions and drive growth.

• Data fragmentation: Scattered data across on-prem SAP and in-house systems made information consolidation challenging.
• Transfer complexity: Large-scale data migration from on-premises to the cloud was cumbersome.
• Departmental silos: Isolated data within departments impeded collaboration and data sharing.
• Security concerns: Data security, encryption, and governance issues limited ARG’s effective use of data in business processes.

Empowering ARG with Data-Driven Solutions: Supported by Google Cloud Cortex Framework 

To address these challenges, Pluto7, a Google Cloud Partner, was engaged to help ARG migrate their SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) data to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and optimize their data management processes. The solution comprised the following key components:

• Cloud onboarding to GCP: This step involved setting up GCP components such as BigQuery, Cloud Data Fusion, and PowerBI for data management, analytics, and visualization.
• Building data foundation with Google Cloud Cortex Framework: This step involved building a strong data foundation to facilitate data-driven decision making. Cortex framework paved the path to breaking data silos and integrating disparate data sources.
• Migrating SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) data to GCP: Pluto7 used Cloud Data Fusion to seamlessly integrate SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) data with GCP BigQuery, creating a more streamlined data management process.
• Developing multiple PowerBI dashboards: Pluto7 replicated existing live manual Excel-based business reports and ABAP reports in GCP, enabling ARG to generate insights more efficiently.

Unified Solution Architecture:
Bridging the Gap between SAP and GCP

SAP Table Integration: MARA, VBAK, VBAP, and Beyond
Central to the solution architecture was the integration of essential SAP tables, such as MARA (Material Master), VBAK (Sales Document Header Data), and VBAP (Sales Document Item Data). These tables, along with other relevant SAP tables, formed the foundation of the data pipeline between ARG’s SAP system and GCP.

Empowering a Strong Data Foundation with Cortex Framework
Leveraging Google Cloud Cortex, we enabled ARG to establish a robust data foundation, optimizing their data ingestion, processing, analysis, and management capabilities. By harnessing the power of Cortex Framework, ARG experienced accelerated insights generation and empowered informed decision-making.

Leveraging Data Fusion for Seamless Data Transfer
Data Fusion, a fully-managed data integration service, was utilized to transfer data from the SAP ecosystem to the Google Cloud. This powerful tool enabled efficient and secure data migration, ensuring that all critical information was successfully moved to the GCP environment.

Harnessing the Power of GCP Services
Once the data was transferred to GCP, a combination of Cloud Storage, Composer, and BigQuery was used to store, process, and analyze the data. Cloud Storage provided scalable storage solutions, while Composer orchestrated data workflows. Finally, BigQuery was used to facilitate efficient data analysis. 

Real-Time Visualization with Power BI
Power BI was employed as the UI layer to provide a user-friendly interface for data exploration and real-time visualization. This powerful data visualization tool allowed ARG’s team to easily access and analyze the data, empowering them to make more informed, data-driven decisions.

Putting the Plan into Action

The implementation phase was a critical component in ARG’s data transformation journey, involving a meticulously planned and executed strategy to address their data challenges and successfully deploy the solution while minimizing disruptions to ongoing operations.

1. Data Warehouse (Google BigQuery): Data was staged in BigQuery for further analysis, such as integrity checks and schema validation. Master tables were created in BigQuery based on any transformation performed on the staged data.
2. Analysis of Data: The data was preprocessed and analyzed in BigQuery to ensure data quality and consistency.
3. Generating Reports: Views were created on top of master tables to generate analytics reports, which were then saved back to BigQuery.
4. Visualization: The final data saved in BigQuery was connected to Power BI for visualization, allowing ARG to generate dynamic, real-time dashboards for better decision-making.

Strengthening Security Foundations

Step 1: Securing the Data Migration

Pluto7 employed rigorous security measures to ensure compliance with industry regulations and standards during the migration process, including:

• Advanced data encryption for data transfer and storage
• Policy-based routing and IKEv2 protocols for secure communications
• Whitelisting secure public IP addresses to prevent unauthorized access
• Utilizing VPN, Firewall, and Router Management services for comprehensive protection

Step 2: Fortifying ARG’s Data Infrastructure

To safeguard against data breaches, unauthorized access, or other potential threats during the data migration process, several key security measures were implemented:

• Firewall rules to manage network traffic and block unauthorized access
• Robust data encryption techniques to protect sensitive data during migration and storage
• Identity and Access Management (IAM) for fine-grained access control, ensuring only authorized personnel could access specific data and resources within the GCP environment
• Leveraging Cloud Key Management Service (KMS) to encrypt and decrypt data in the Google Cloud Storage (GCS) bucket, maintaining the integrity of ARG’s sensitive data

Step 3: Proactive Security Monitoring and Auditing

To maintain long-term protection of ARG’s data and infrastructure, Pluto7 enabled real-time flow logs on Firewall, facilitating continuous monitoring and auditing of security events.

Successful Risk Mitigation

The implemented security protocols have successfully mitigated potential risks or incidents since the completion of the project. Examples of these security measures include enabling the IKEv2 protocol for secure communication, disabling unwanted ports, and allowing only required secure connections.

Tangible Results and Benefits: A Data-Driven Transformation

Implementing the comprehensive solution by Pluto7 transformed ARG’s data management landscape, leading to remarkable improvements across multiple dimensions of their business processes. 

Seamless SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) and GCP BigQuery Integration: The successful integration of ARG’s SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) data with GCP’s BigQuery using Google Cloud Cortex revolutionized their data management process, creating a unified and efficient system for data storage and analysis.

Empowering Data-Driven Decision-Making: The real-time, dynamic dashboards provided valuable insights into ARG’s business operations, enabling them to make informed, data-driven decisions that yielded better outcomes.

Breaking Down Data Silos: The solution enhanced collaboration between departments, dismantling data silos that had previously hindered innovation and productivity.

Accelerated Business Processes: With the ability to access and analyze data more efficiently, ARG experienced an acceleration in various business processes, increasing overall productivity and effectiveness.

Greater Data Security and Compliance: The solution ensured that ARG’s data was protected at every stage, adhering to industry-specific regulations and maintaining the highest standards of data security.

Scalable and Future-Proof Infrastructure: The GCP-based infrastructure provided ARG with a scalable and future-proof solution, allowing them to adapt and grow with ease as their data needs evolve.

Accelerated Report Generation: The time required to generate reports was reduced by 60%, leading to faster decision-making and more agile business processes.

Automated and Streamlined Reporting: Manual processes and Excel-based reports were replaced by automated, dynamic dashboards, eliminating human errors and inconsistencies and improving the overall quality of insights.

Real-Time Access to Data: The solution enabled ARG to access real-time data for their business reports, ensuring they had the most up-to-date information at their fingertips and empowering them to make informed decisions quickly.

Data-Driven Decision-Making: The solution allowed ARG to make better-informed decisions by providing comprehensive, real-time insights into key performance indicators (KPIs) and other critical business metrics.

For more information
www.pluto7.com/success-stories