Dubai-based SaaS ISV increases performance by 45% while enforcing regulatory compliance by migrating from MariaDB to MySQL HeatWave on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Introduction & Background
Educore, based in Dubai, provides a SaaS platform for streamlining educational processes in nurseries, primary schools, high schools, and educational councils across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. The system contains all the modules needed to smoothly run school operations, from registrations to student profiles and evaluations, along with HR, accounting, reporting and compliance. The platform allows for building a range of school curricula, including the IB, American, British, National Ministry, and French curricula as well as the option to develop customized curriculum plans.
Schools in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia use Educore for holistically managing under one umbrella processes that frequently require multiple applications. This eliminated duplication of data, and allowed different departments to seamlessly share data.
Business Challenges & Goals
Over the years, Educore worked with cloud and database providers in the United States and Europe but found itself unable to grow in rhythm with the huge success of its platform. Its Germany-based server and MariaDB backend were insufficient to meet user expectations. Worse, with data housed outside the region, it could not meet the educational performance compliance regulations of agencies in GCC countries. Furthermore, it was frustrated by the inability to have transactions and analytics in one single cloud database instance.
In 2022 Educore began reviewing the market for a high-performance cloud database and infrastructure to solve its problems. After extensive review, it chose to migrate to MySQL HeatWave on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
Business Results & Metrics
Moving to MySQL HeatWave delivered a 45% improvement in database performance. Over 80,000 users at schools in 140 sites across the GCC experienced virtually halved response time for handling lessons plans, admissions, evaluations, accounting, resource management, payroll, communications, and more.
For Educore developers the 45% boost in performance means faster time to market for platform innovations to support holistic school operations, including the ability to run real-time analytics.
Server and query performance are constantly monitored and fine-tuned by MySQL HeatWave Performance Monitoring, ensuring rapid response time for developers and users alike, automatically isolating and eliminating query performance issues in real time, and enhancing the user experience.
MySQL HeatWave delivered a more dynamic structure for serving school operations customers. Regulatory compliance—its number one challenge to growth—was achieved through Oracle’s network of globally distributed cloud data centers, organized into separate, secure cloud realms with data sovereignty ensured.
With its platform now hosted in the Oracle Cloud regions in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Educore meets the regulatory frameworks of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Thanks to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), customers of the platform have the tools to generate reports and analysis for bodies monitoring education performance such as ADEK (the Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge), KHDA (the Knowledge and Human Development Authority) in Dubai and their equivalent in Saudi Arabia.
“For achieving growth, compliance is the key factor. If you are not compliant then you will lose the market,” observed Moustafa Batrouni.
Compliance is reinforced with MySQL HeatWave Database Audit, the built-in auditing mechanism which proves data validity with detailed records for data accuracy and database integrity checks to meet the most demanding data governance and security requirements.
Importantly for the company, Oracle public cloud regions across the globe will allow it to enter international markets. Already Educore is available in 16 different languages; Oracle Cloud regions guarantee localized, compliant roll-out wherever it chooses to expand.
Migration to MySQL HeatWave eliminated the need for a separate database for transactions and analytics, which also eliminated the need for extract, transfer, and load (ETL).
MySQL HeatWave’s in-memory query accelerator provides built-in, real-time analytics furnishing schools with dashboards for statistical analysis of key school indicators such as overall class performance, participation, tests, and exams. It provided the means to conduct grade comparisons, gap analysis, and similar methods leading to academic improvement.
Educore was extremely satisfied by the support throughout the migration, post-migration and future directions afforded by Oracle’s MySQL and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure teams working with implementation partner Lexiicon. Currently it is fleshing out a roadmap based on HeatWave/OCI functionality that will drive analytics, the bedrock of business expansion.
“By carefully calculating our expansion in terms of Oracle technology, when the moment arises, we will only have to switch on the necessary components, because our game plan will be solidly in place,” said Moustafa Batrouni.
Why MySQL HeatWave?
Educore chose MySQL HeatWave and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) for scalability, reliability, data management, customer support and compliance. By having its platform hosted on the Oracle Cloud Regions in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, it no longer had to worry about having data outside of the GCC region and could meet sovereign regulations with ease.
“Oracle was our best fit from all angles: power and performance, analytics, compliance and, with amazing support, a roadmap to international expansion,” commented Moustafa Batrouni.
Implementation
The migration carried out by Lexiicon took place in three steps: preparation of the server on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) with MySQL HeatWave, moving and testing the data on OCI, and routing of the Educore application for integration with the new back end.
Partner
One Lexiicon successfully migrated the customer from MariaDB to MySQL HeatWave on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). One Lexiicon, a Singapore-based professional services company specialized in Oracle technology, was selected for its cost-effective value-based implementation solution and delivered seamlessly.
“The One Lexiicon team showed outstanding skills and responsiveness in migration, testing and post migration. This superlative transition led by One Lexiicon also owes much to the invaluable support of the Oracle MySQL and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure solutions team,” stated Moustafa Batrouni.
Next Steps
Educore is evaluating Oracle AI/ML tools with a view to offering clients greater strength in financial reporting and their ability to analyze school operations over time. With an extensive data warehouse going back a decade its goal is to offer schools a dashboard for the different cohorts and the different years of education in terms of academic success and financial reward.