The need for an enhanced commercial analysis tool to replace their two existing ones brought GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to us. Timing was critical, because the initial release had to be completed ready for the commercial analysts to create their yearly evaluations both for product development decisions and for reporting to the stock market. The project timescale covered the development of the new product, design of the new database, and the migration of the existing databases.
GSK had two existing Oracle 8 databases hosting their analysis tools. These were used by separate business groups, as they covered analysis at different stages in the lifecycle of their products.
The databases were distributed internationally, one being hosted in the US and the other in the UK. Each held between 200 and 300MB of medical trial data relating to the product, predicted costs, sales and market penetration. The structure of the databases was complex due to the nature of the data being held. Information was integrated by the applications from other corporate databases to enhance the content.
Working as part of a collaborative team including GSK IT staff from the US and UK and Microsoft in the UK, we undertook database design, development and migration, including mapping, production data migration and issue management and resolution
