CIRA Annual Report 2007-2008

2007–2008 CIRA Annual Report22Because of the centralization of information,every staff member accesses common datasimplifying decision making and providinguser focused reporting.CIRA began importing data into the BusinessIntelligence system in fiscal 2008. Thisdata set was limited in nature to allow forsystem customization and testing. CIRA’sSQL Programmer Analyst, Philip Mann wasmanaging this process. Results from the testingprocess have indicated that additional set-upand customization work is required.CIRA began building its data warehouse in 2008.The registry’s main database including its keydimensions was the first data-source importedinto the warehouse. Other data sources havesince followed. Among these sources is data thathelps CIRA better understand and analyze themarket categories that use dot-ca domains. Planshave been made to add additional data streamsinto CIRA’s warehouse and CIRA will continueto use Cognos Business Intelligence, one of theworld’s leading Business Intelligence solutionsto provide insightful and meaningful access toour data.DISASTER RECOVERY AND THEDATABASE BACKUPAs a key public resource CIRA must ensure thatit is able to maintain both DNS and the Registryin the event of a service interruption, networkoutage, or disaster. Essential to this goal is systemredundancy in the form of a dedicated backupsystem that is in a separate geographical locationfrom the main one. Although CIRA alreadymaintains multiple system nodes and backupcapabilities, the systems did not allow for seamlessservice delivery and the failure of one locationmay have led to limited service outages. CIRA’sOperations team deployed new hardware systemsto support the backup site in late fiscal 2008.These changes allow CIRA to provide service evenin the event of a failure of a primary node with nointerruption of service.