Six alternatives to replace licensed Oracle database options

More and more I hear companies looking into replacing expensive licensed database options with more cost-effective alternatives, for various reasons: simple cost reduction, or avoiding lock-in, or because of other strategic considerations. In order to kickstart the creative thinking, here are a few hardware and software based methods to achieve cost reduction in database options (on top of Oracle Enterprise Edition). I am assuming the base product stays the same (Oracle Enterprise Edition) as replacing EE with alternatives can be very cost effective – but requires serious changes in architecture and management so I’ll leave that for another time.

Five reasons to choose VMware vs Oracle Multitenant

While busy preparing another blogpost on my dedupe analyzer tool, I was triggered to write a quick hotlist of reasons why one would strategically choose VMware virtualization over Oracle multitenant option if the goal is to achieve operational and cost benefits. There may be other good reasons to go for Oracle Multitenant but cost savings is not one of them.

On twitter I claimed I could give 5 reasons why, so here we go…

WARNING: Controversial topic – further reading at own risk ;-)

Webcast: How to save on Oracle licensing fees by replatforming on Dell EMC

On Jan 24th, I will host a webcast on Oracle cost optimization via database replatforming.

Database license fees drive over 80% of total system cost. Many organizations virtualize their applications, but Oracle is often an exception for a variety of reasons.
You will learn why re-platforming Oracle databases on better hardware can drive down TCO by a significant amount. Bart will also cover technical challenges and benefits, as well as myths and facts about licensing Oracle on VMware, and how to deal with Oracle license audits and still stay compliant.

The presentation will be a mix of technical as well as IT management level content, and will discuss how to use Dell EMC platforms with or without virtualization, to optimize database license cost. I will also cover common myths, gotchas and workarounds for licensing issues.

Keith Dobbs, our guest speaker from Madora Consulting, will cover more interesting insights in Oracle licensing, audits and negotiations.

We already have nearly 200 registrations but there is always room for more, so click on the picture below to register:

Webcast

See you there on Tuesday!

Update: The presentation is available via the Presentations page

This post first appeared on Dirty Cache by Bart Sjerps. Copyright © 2011 – 2017. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission.

The Zero Dataloss Myth

In previous posts I have focused on the technical side of running business applications (except my last post about the Joint Escalation Center). So let’s teleport to another level and have a look at business drivers.

What happens if you are an IT architect for an organization, and you ask your business people (your internal customers) how much data loss they can tolerate in case of a disaster? I bet the answer is always the same:

“zero!”

This relates to what is known in the industry as Recovery Point Objective (RPO).

Ask them how much downtime they can tolerate in case something bad happens. Again, the consistent answer:

“none!”

This is equivalent to Recovery Time Objective (RTO).

Now if you are in “Jukebox mode” (business asks, you provide, no questions asked) then you try to give them what they ask for (RPO = zero, RTO = zero). Which makes many IT vendors and communication service providers happy, because this means you have to run expensive clustering software, and synchronous data mirroring to a D/R site using pricey data connections.

If you are in “Consultative” mode, you try to figure out what the business really wants, not just what they ask for. And you wonder if their request is feasible at all, and if so, what the cost is of achieving these service levels.

POC: Piece Of Cake or Point Of Contradiction?

Every now and then I get involved in Customer Proof of Concepts. A Proof of Concept (POC) is, according to Wikipedia, something like a demonstration of feasibility of a certain idea, concept or theory.

Concept Aircraft

Oracle Stretched Cluster with VPLEX (update)

One request I got back after my series on Oracle RAC stretched clusters is if I could summarize again why anybody would choose VPLEX for storage replication over other solutions. My attempt was to describe the principles of VPLEX in enough detail for techies to understand it. For non-geeks, I will try to explain it as brief as possible.

Data Guard or Storage based replication?

A comparison between Oracle (Active) Data Guard and EMC replication for disaster recovery purposes

This is an article I wrote a while ago for customers’ Database Administrators (DBAs) and application managers, that helps them in selecting the right Disaster Recovery tools for their business applications.
It is slightly modified to update new insights and to make it more readable on the web.