How The Ohio State University modernized their data foundation with AWS

This article describes how The Ohio State University transformed its fragmented data infrastructure into a unified, scalable platform using AWS services, achieving significant performance improvements and enabling institutional collaboration.

• Migrated from on-premises Oracle systems to Amazon Redshift as central data repository, eliminating data silos across departments
• Implemented medallion architecture with bronze, silver, and gold data layers using Amazon S3 and Redshift for governance and accessibility
• Reduced data processing time from 6 hours to 3 hours; course and student data processing reduced from hours to minutes
• Converted 600+ users within 6 months through 3-month change management process with educational webinars and stakeholder engagement
• Positioned institution for AI adoption through Model Context Protocol and LLM technologies for secure research collaboration

Ohio State's success demonstrates that strategic cloud modernization requires vision, change management investment, extensible architecture design, and continuous improvement mindset to drive institutional competitiveness.