Case Study: Modernizing BI at Cisco - OBIEE to Power BI Migration

Business Driver

Cisco’s EN Operations team relied on Oracle BI (OBIEE) for a large portfolio of operational and management reporting. Over time, the OBIEE environment became increasingly difficult to maintain and scale, with hundreds of dashboards, deeply embedded calculations, and complex security logic tied to legacy infrastructure.

As Cisco continued to standardize on Microsoft Azure and Power BI, the team needed a modernization approach that would:

• Migrate OBIEE content without disrupting business users
• Preserve existing calculations, logic, and security models
• Reduce the time, cost, and risk associated with manual report rewrites

Traditional migration methods, based heavily on manual conversion and validation, introduced unacceptable timelines and risk. Cisco required an automated, repeatable approach to modernize BI at enterprise scale.

What KPI Delivered

KPI Partners deployed its BI Modernization Accelerator, leveraging automation and GenAI to convert Oracle BI (OBIEE) assets into a modern Power BI environment.

Automated Inventory and Assessment

KPI began by inventorying more than 400 OBIEE reports and dashboards, including metadata, calculation logic, and security dependencies. This upfront analysis created a clear migration roadmap while identifying reusable patterns across reports.

GenAI-Powered Conversion of OBIEE Logic

At the core of the accelerator is a GenAI-enabled conversion engine built on Azure OpenAI. The platform automatically analyzes OBIEE calculations, expressions, and semantic logic and converts them into optimized Power BI DAX.

Rather than relying on manual rewrites, the GenAI model interprets legacy BI logic and generates Power BI–ready calculations at scale. As the accelerator processes reports across OBIEE, Tableau, and Qlik environments, the model continuously learns and improves, driving higher accuracy and faster conversions with each migration.

This approach significantly reduced manual coding and validation effort while ensuring consistent business logic across migrated reports.

Security and Platform Integration

Existing OBIEE security models were reimplemented in Power BI using Azure Active Directory, preserving role-based access controls and minimizing disruption for end users. Power BI apps were used to manage content distribution and access across teams.

Paginated Reports and Subscriptions

Multi-page OBIEE reports were rebuilt using Power BI Paginated Reports, ensuring pixel-perfect formatting where required. OBIEE iBots were replaced with Power BI data-driven subscriptions, maintaining automated report delivery workflows.

Feature Parity and Extensions

Legacy write-back functionality was reimplemented using Power Apps and supporting services where needed, ensuring critical workflows continued without compromise.

Automated Report Delivery

To enhance distribution, KPI implemented Power BI Delivers, enabling secure email-based delivery of Power BI reports via SharePoint links.

Business Benefits

Cisco realized six immediate and measurable benefits from its GenAI-enabled BI modernization:

1- Faster migrations through automation

GenAI-driven conversion of OBIEE calculations dramatically reduced the time required to migrate reports.

2- Reduced human error

Automated logic translation minimized inconsistencies and regression issues common in manual BI migrations.

3- Lower cost and effort

By eliminating large portions of manual coding and validation, Cisco reduced overall migration cost and delivery effort.

4- Preserved business logic and security

Existing calculations, rules, and access controls were carried forward without disrupting users.

5- Scalable modernization foundation

As the GenAI model continues to learn from each migration, future BI modernization efforts become faster and more efficient.

6- Modern analytics platform

Cisco now benefits from a cloud-ready Power BI environment that supports faster development, improved usability, and tighter integration with Azure.

Ready to Accelerate Your BI Modernization?

Modernizing legacy BI platforms doesn’t have to be slow, manual, or risky. KPI’s BI Modernization Accelerator combines automation, GenAI, and proven delivery frameworks to help enterprises move to Power BI faster while preserving logic, reducing cost, and minimizing disruption.

Let’s talk about how GenAI-powered BI modernization can work for your organization.