Aura Minerals Cuts Migration Time by 87% with dbt, Indicium Agentic AI and AI Data Squads
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Aura Minerals, a global mining leader, partnered with Indicium to evolve its analytics capabilities and enable AI at scale. As the company’s data strategy matured, Aura saw the opportunity to modernize its PySpark-based workflows and adopt a future-ready framework powered by dbt, governance, and automation — without slowing operations or compromising quality.
Indicium combined its AI Data Squads, a team of experts proficient in both PySpark and dbt, with a proprietary AI Migration Agent to cut pipeline migration time from 45 hours to just 6. The result: faster analytics delivery, stronger governance, and a more agile data operation. Aura also unlocked a governed, scalable data environment that powers AI and advanced analytics.
Architecting for Scale: Evolving the Data Platform to Enable AI and Advanced Analytics
As Aura Minerals’ data landscape matured, its legacy PySpark-based environment — once adequate for batch processing and basic analytics — presented constraints in scalability, maintainability, and adaptability. The environment evolved organically into over 400 notebooks and more than 100 tightly coupled workflows, each embedding business-critical logic.
This architectural sprawl, while functional in earlier phases, lacked the modularity, observability, and governance required to support the company’s next stage of data maturity. Aura aimed to prepare for machine learning, AI, and real-time analytics. Development velocity slowed, onboarding required specialized skill sets, and business users had limited visibility into data lineage and transformation logic.
With expanding data demands, Aura required a modern, composable, and transparent data transformation layer. To future-proof its platform and accelerate time-to-insight, Aura and Indicium strategically pivoted toward a declarative, SQL-based approach using dbt.
This transition introduced version control, modular data modeling, testing frameworks, and lineage tracking, key capabilities to support governed, reproducible pipelines. More importantly, it laid the foundation for operationalizing AI use cases by enabling consistent, auditable, and scalable data transformations across domains.
Aura’s modernization marked a broader architectural shift: from isolated data workflows to a unified, governed platform designed not just to solve today’s problems, but to enable tomorrow’s intelligence.
AI-Powered Migration at Scale with IndiMesh, Prompt2Pipeline and AI Data Squads
Indicium brought more than dbt expertise. We delivered a scalable, AI-enabled framework through our proprietary Prompt2Pipeline Agent, built on automation, governance, speed, and adaptability.
We deployed a specialized AI Data Squad, a multidisciplinary team of experts proficient in both PySpark and dbt, that operates with agile precision. They rapidly mapped, converted, validated, and deployed the full PySpark estate, which included 401 notebooks and 140 complex workflows, into a governed dbt environment with models that both business and data teams can trust and understand.
At the core was our proprietary AI Migration Agent, custom-built to automatically convert PySpark logic into modular dbt models.
Guided by the Prompt2Pipeline Agent, the transformation included:
- AI-powered discovery of the entire PySpark estate
- Automated code conversion into dbt, with logic modularized and optimized
- Seamless integration with dbt’s Metadata and Control Plane (MCP) for version control and governance
- Rigorous validation and AI-augmented tests aligned to dbt best practices
- Confident launch with continuous feedback and iteration
From Technical Migration to Intelligent Business Enablement
The migration didn’t just improve technical performance, it unlocked AI-enabled data access. Indicium transformed complex PySpark logic into governed, modular dbt models, and built a self-service analytics layer with version control, lineage, and built-in quality checks. Aura’s business teams can now use AI copilots to access data faster and reduce reliance on technical teams.
This wasn’t retrofitted. The architecture was built AI-ready from day one. Scalable, standardized models and embedded governance now support advanced analytics, autonomous agents, and AI copilots with confidence and control.
We replaced specialized code with standardized templates. We embedded control without slowing agility. And we now enable Aura’s internal teams to own and operate the platform with confidence.
Migration 7x Faster. Full Governance. One Unified Platform.
Indicium’s AI-powered framework reduced the average time per pipeline from ~45 hours to ~6 hours — an impressive 87% time savings. Beyond speed, the project delivered governance and operational efficiency:
- Code Governance: Moved from untracked logic to 100% adherence to dbt standards and guardrails
- Deployment Acceleration: Dropped from 2 days to just 4 hours
- Sustainable Modernization: Unified architecture for analytics, governance, and AI enablement
Aura now operates on a composable, transparent platform, engineered to support tomorrow’s intelligence.
Indicium’s Framework, Expertise, and Collaborative Approach
Aura chose Indicium for more than migration speed. They needed a strategic partner that could bring clarity, structure, and repeatability to a complex transformation. Indicium delivered with IndiMesh, our AI-enabled delivery framework built on collective intelligence, proven expertise, and rigorous quality control.
Our AI Data Squads as a Service ensured hands-on collaboration from day one. From code conversion to validation, every step followed a structured methodology to ensure accuracy, integrity, and business continuity.
With over 7 years of experience in the modern data stack, Indicium brought the tools, training, and talent to not only execute the migration but also enable long-term success. We embedded governance into the platform through version control, lineage, and CI/CD practices, giving the client full visibility and control over their transformations. Aura’s teams now own their data platform, with governance embedded into every layer, and the autonomy to expand AI capabilities with confidence.
Our commitment to quality made the difference. AI-powered testing, standardized architecture templates, and expert oversight delivered 95%+ code conformity and reduced rework. Migration became modernization, completed in a fraction of the time, with a future-proof foundation in place.
Aura Minerals is ready to deliver faster insights, scale with agility, and build with confidence on a platform designed to evolve with its ambitions.
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