Lead Admin for a MicroStrategy Upgrade Project with zero downtime

Rakesh led a transformative project at AARP, focusing on upgrading the MicroStrategy platform from version 10.11 to version 2021 to modernize the organization’s analytics capabilities. He successfully executed the MicroStrategy upgrade with zero downtime, optimizing system performance through advanced VLDB configurations and Intelligent Cubes, resulting in a 30% reduction in report load times.
By implementing architectural and infrastructure changes, Rakesh successfully projected potential cost savings using the AWS cost calculator. The estimated savings, calculated across development, testing, and production environments, will be realized once the old system is retired. The savings from transitioning from the old MSTR platform to the new MSTR platform amounted to a yearly reduction of $128,570, representing a 57% cost savings. This was achieved by optimizing AWS EC2 and RDS usage, resulting in monthly savings of $7,008 and yearly savings of $84,098.
Rakesh standardized DevOps code by removing Troposphere dependency, optimizing costs with Parameter Store, enhancing disaster recovery with AMI restoration in CFT, integrating CloudWatch for EC2 error logs, streamlining CFT maintenance via Bitbucket Pipelines, and automating stack deletion, RDS backups, and snapshot cleanup with custom pipelines.
As an Architect, Rakesh re-architected the MicroStrategy application by migrating metadata to PostgreSQL, reducing EC2 instances by 50%, retiring the Narrowcast server, and eliminating Windows dependency by transitioning to Linux and Tomcat. He enhanced disaster recovery with automated backups (AMI, EBS, RDS, EFS) and ensured zero downtime through a blue-green deployment strategy.
Rakesh streamlined report development, reducing effort and allowing the BI team to focus on higher-value tasks. He boosted user adoption by enabling more business users to access and analyze data, and enhanced the user experience with an intuitive interface. Through the implementation of Tableau, he successfully supported these goals, providing a powerful data visualization platform.
With his leadership and designing capabilities, Rakesh’s re-architecture of the MicroStrategy application drove significant improvements in AARP’s infrastructure, enhancing system performance, scalability, and disaster recovery. His strategic implementation of PostgreSQL, Linux, and blue-green deployments not only reduced costs and downtime but also positioned the organization for continued growth and innovation.