The Cambridge Trust provides the largest number of scholarships for international students at Cambridge, working with partners worldwide to support students of outstanding academic merit under a variety of scholarship schemes.
The Trust ran most of its operations through an out-dated on-premises custom database application. The main function of the database is to award scholarships and then pay funds, both to students, for maintenance and other expenses, and to the Cambridge Colleges for tuition fees.
The Database was hosted at the University of Cambridge as an SQL Server database running on a server VM and an application on a shared drive, which runs on local client PCs.
Trust engaged Valorem Reply UK to migrate the database to Azure Cloud, as well as modernising and extending the application features and functionality by leveraging the power of cloud services.
The customers goals were:
- To get a sustainable operating model and associated security.
- To get a stable platform, and ongoing support.
- New web-based user interface.
- Database restructuring, data archiving, ‘read only’ & ‘edit’ modes in application, Power BI reports, role-based access control.
- Application that is hosted on Azure.
- Migration of existing integrations with CamSIS (the University’s student database), TOAST (the University’s application scoring system) and Sage (for financial accounting and reporting) systems with Azure Integration Services (AIS), providing future flexibility.
Working for a small but highly important organization provided the team both challenges and satisfaction in equal measures. The result has seen a more stable and quality solution providing support for the team’s important actions." - Andy James, Partner, Valorem Reply UK
CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES
- Existing application was developed around 10 years ago and was dependent on one consultant providing limited support to Valorem Reply UK team.
- Trust does not have an internal IT team. Valorem Reply UK had to liaise with Cambridge University Information Services (UIS) for all the required access & all the technical discussions.
- Valorem Reply UK team were new to GitHub & Power BI, so tasks required significant amount of research.
SOLUTIONS
- Application Hosted on Azure.
- Browser based UI.
- Secure MFA protection.
- External systems integration decoupled with Azure Integration Services, providing future flexibility.
- Rich reporting through Power BI.
RESULTS
- Valorem Reply UK delivered a secure, cloud based, stable and useable application.
- The team at Cambridge Trust were able to add in additional requirements as the project progressed due to the agile approach.
- Valorem Reply UK provided full support for the new application.
- Next enhancements already being planned.
