Barwon Water’s data transformation for real-time decision making.
Barwon Water is a government-owned water utility serving Victoria’s Geelong region and surrounding areas. As the region’s largest urban water corporation, Barwon Water is committed to delivering reliable water and wastewater services to its customers while prioritising sustainability and community well-being.
To meet the growing demands of its service area and adapt to environmental challenges, Barwon Water has invested heavily in data and digital transformation.
Barwon Water had embarked on a comprehensive data and digital transformation journey, revealing challenge areas that required improvement to fully leverage their data.
These included:
• Achieving Real-Time Data Synchronisation: Ensuring seamless, real-time data synchronisation between on-premise systems and cloud-based platforms to maintain data accuracy and timeliness.
• Integrating Disparate Data Sources: Addressing the fragmentation of data across multiple systems by creating a unified, reliable database for effective analysis and decision-making.
• Automating Data Transformation Processes: Streamlining the preparation of data to eliminate inconsistencies and ensure it is always analytics-ready, reducing manual effort and errors.
• Scaling for Growth: Tackling limitations in their existing data infrastructure to accommodate growing data volumes and meet advanced analytics requirements without compromising performance.
• Enhancing User Accessibility: Making data visualisations, dashboards, and reporting tools more user-friendly and accessible to empower their team with the insights needed for rapid, informed decision-making.
To address Barwon Water’s data challenges, Notitia implemented a streamlined and reliable data management solution by leveraging a suite of Qlik tools. This approach enabled seamless integration, transformation, and visualisation of data, turning raw information into actionable insights.
• Data Integration
Notitia deployed Qlik Replicate to bridge Barwon Water’s on-premise SQL Server databases with the Microsoft Azure SQL Database. By automating full-load replication and using Change Data Capture (CDC) functionality, real-time updates kept datasets synchronised, ensuring data accuracy and timeliness.
• Data Transformation
To enhance the usability of raw data, Qlik Compose automated critical transformation steps, such as cleansing, aggregation, and enrichment. This ensured that Barwon Water’s data models were always analytics-ready, supporting advanced reporting and insights.
• Cloud Migration
Notitia seamlessly migrated Barwon Water’s datasets to Microsoft Azure, establishing a secure and scalable cloud infrastructure. This migration enabled efficient storage and management of both raw and transformed data, laying the foundation for advanced analytics capabilities.
•Data Visualisation
Building on this foundation, Notitia implemented Qlik Cloud Analytics (formerly Qlik Sense - SaaS) to provide Barwon Water with powerful visualisation and reporting tools. By leveraging Qlik Cloud Analytics, operational teams gained real-time insights into critical metrics such as water quality, consumption patterns, and infrastructure performance, empowering them to make data-driven decisions with confidence.
Qlik Cloud Analytics was used to create interactive dashboards and reports, allowing Barwon Water to visualise real-time data on water quality, consumption patterns, and infrastructure performance.
• Real-Time Data Synchronisation
By integrating Qlik Replicate with CDC, Barwon Water achieved continuous real-time synchronisation between its on-premise and cloud-based platforms, ensuring data consistency across systems.
• Performance Monitoring
Notitia implemented monitoring solutions to track data flow and system performance, ensuring reliable operation and identifying potential bottlenecks.
• Training and Support
To ensure smooth adoption, Notitia provided hands-on training for Barwon Water’s employees, equipping them to leverage the Qlik tools effectively. Ongoing technical support was also provided to address any challenges and optimise the use of the new systems.
The implementation of Qlik Replicate and Qlik Compose enabled Barwon Water to achieve seamless real-time data synchronisation and automated data transformation. This streamlined their data management processes, improving operational efficiency and providing a strong foundation for future scalability.
By leveraging Qlik Cloud Analytics (formerly Qlik Sense - SaaS), Barwon Water gained access to interactive dashboards and visualisations that empowered their operational teams to monitor critical metrics such as water quality, consumption patterns, and infrastructure performance in near real-time. This enhanced visibility allowed for:
• Improved Decision-Making
Teams could act on real-time insights, leading to more informed and timely decisions.
• Better Resource Management
Optimised allocation of resources supported more efficient and effective operations.
• Sustainability Gains
Enhanced monitoring and analytics has supported efforts to maintain a sustainable water supply for Barwon Water's customers.
The integration of these tools transformed Barwon Water’s data into a strategic asset, driving measurable improvements in operations and contributing to a more sustainable and resilient water management system.
End-to-End Technology
• On-Premise Environment: Data stored in disparate systems.
• Qlik Replicate: Extracts and synchronises raw data to the cloud.
• Microsoft Azure SQL Database (Raw Data): Stores untransformed data in a secure cloud environment.Qlik Compose: Transforms raw data into enriched, analytics-ready models.
• Microsoft Azure SQL Database (Transformed Data): Hosts transformed, ready-to-use data.
• Qlik Cloud Analytics: Provides dashboards, visualisations, and reporting for real-time insights.
• Qlik Replicate
• Microsoft Azure SQL Database
• Qlik Compose
• Qlik Cloud Analytics
