Expression of Interest - Integration Toolset for Western Sydney University

Western Sydney University (Western) provides digital services to students and staff via a largely centralised IT operation within Information Technology and Digital Services (ITDS). With its large set of solutions and applications, there is a significant amount of integration required between systems. Integration also underpins the University's Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Warehouse (DW) initiatives. Integration helps support efforts to improve data consistency, it reduces manual data entry, streamlines processes and thereby increasing efficiencies and supporting the provision of a better experience for staff and students.

ITDS at Western uses Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) as its primary tool for undertaking batch/scheduled integration between systems. Alteryx and WhereScapeRED are used as integration tools in the data warehouse and analytics arena.

In 2014/2015 Western implemented Red Hat Fuse and gained some success in implementing real-time and near real-time integrations/transactions to support business and student activities.

There are some additional tools used by other teams and some legacy tools remain in place. For example, some integration occurs using database links, SFTP (over SSH) of text files, SSIS is used for some legacy integration, and Power Automate is used by some business units.

Some time has passed since Western looked at its toolset. Given our increasing focus on information, data, and integration, on cloud and SaaS solutions, the ever-present need to provide robust, frictionless services to deliver business and student outcomes, and the capability of new integration tools in the market, Western seeks to revisit the tools it uses to provide integration services. This includes integration services to support transactional/system integration and the data warehouse and analytics functions. This work will be coupled with an internal exercise to refocus the team, processes, skills, and capabilities to support the best adoption of tools and platforms by the University.

As a result, WSU is seeking Responses to the Expression of Interest (EOI or Invitation) from vendors offering a complete solution, or tool/s to contribute to a complete solution for implementing a feasible integration toolset.