Oracle licensing is complicated.
Oracle aggressively audits clients.
Non-compliance can cost millions.
So what is the alternative?

• Establish your effective licensing position (what licences we have, what have we deployed, what are the risks)
• Create an Oracle audit playbook (who does what, what information to provide, what is the internal process)
• Sleep well!

​Get it touch to find out how we can help.

You are now responsible for your organisations IT budget?

Do you want to have to explain to your CEO or CFO that there is an unplanned expense of millions of dollars to fix a software licence non-compliance?

​I doubt it, so be proactive, get a professional opinion on your current situation and possible risk exposure before a software vendor performs an audit.
Get in touch.

An Oracle ULA can be a golden chariot, or a pumpkin, depending on how it is managed!

Many organisations sign an Unlimited Licensing Agreement (ULA) with Oracle as a result of an audit.  When companies are out of compliance by a large amount, Oracle will position the ULA as the magic solution to make that go away and give the client the possibility to deploy an unlimited quantity of the products in the agreement.   

Many clients then forget all about the ULA for a couple of years until the contract is about to expire, at which point they are not in a position to maximise the agreement, or even to judge whether they will be compliant upon leaving the agreement, so, to Oracle's delight, they renew the ULA agreement.

Before signing a ULA you need to assess the ROI, to determine how to get the most out of this agreement?  A ULA should not be considered as a software licence, it should be a project - managed from end to end, across the organisation (Procurement, Legal, IT Architecture, DBAs, Sysadmins).  Otherwise, you will be scrambling at the end of the agreement to try to get some value from it and may be forced into a renewal against your original intention. 

If managed correctly, the ULA gives the client the possibility to obtain a large number of licences from Oracle.    The emphasis is on managing it correctly.

​Reach out to find out how we can help.

Oracle has added a useful tool :  Oracle licensing and features app

This tool shows the available features and options, by version and whether they require add-on licences.

This should be very useful for clients trying to understand what they are allowed to use under their licence agreements.

Just to get all those clients on older versions in a panic !

Oracle announced the availability of Oracle Database 21c on Oracle Cloud.

The new Blockchain  table looks interesting, where  the  rows are cryptographically hashed as they are inserted into the table, ensuring that the row can no longer be changed at a later date.

Looks like Renaps has a great solution to move from Forms to Java  ​ 

Unlike other solutions , it looks like the generated Java code will actually be usable and modifiable.  Looking forward to seeing some success stories.

Oracle has managed  to create panic and confusion across the IT world with recent Java licensing and support announcements.

Java stopped providing public updates to earlier version of Java - forcing them to sign up for support subscriptions to get updates.

One of the main issues for IT organisations is that nobody ever read the licence agreement every time they downloaded Java from Oracle!  Nobody takes the time to read, let alone SAVE the document as proof for a later date.   So now that Oracle has changed the terms, who can go back and prove that they are using Java under a previous version of the agreement?
​

• Is your Java use included in another licence? (eg. Weblogic, IAS, FMW, E-Business Suite etc)
• Are you using commercial features of Java?
• Are you using Oracle Java, or another distribution? (IBM, OpenJDK)
• Determine what 'General use' means for your organisation
• Is Java running on VMWare? ugh.. back to that again!

Oracle no longer lets clients just purchase Java, no questions asked.  They now insist of 'reviewing' the environment,.  Speak to a 3rd party to get advice before doing that, it is well worth the investment.

Oracle Database 18c is the terminal release for support of the Oracle Streams feature. Oracle Streams will be desupported from Oracle Database 19 onwards.

Oracle Streams was deprecated in Oracle Database 12c (12.1). It does not support features introduced in Database version 12.1 and later releases, including the multitenant architecture, the LONG VARCHAR data type, long identifiers, and other features.

Oracle GoldenGate is the replication solution for Oracle Database.

Oracle Advanced Analytics and Oracle Spatial and Graph options are now included in the  SE2 and Enterprise licences, no longer available as add-on options.  

This is great news for all those customers that have struggled with understanding  when those options are activated, and  the difference between Locator and Spatial.


From oracle.com:

Effective December 5, 2019, Oracle Advanced Analytics (OAA) and Oracle Spatial and Graph (OSG) options are included with Oracle Database. This affects Enterprise Edition, SE2 and Database Cloud Service (DBCS) Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition. 

Oracle Database includes industry-leading multi-model and analytic capabilities. As a converged database, Oracle Database supports multiple data types and data models (e.g. spatial, graph, JSON, XML), algorithms (e.g., machine learning, graph and statistical functions) and workload types (e.g. operational and analytical). While many of these capabilities are included in Oracle Database products and cloud services today, Oracle’s goal is to provide these advanced machine learning, spatial and graph development APIs to all developers and applications.

Oracle Multitenant and the pluggable database architecture was the big new feature in 12c when was released in 2013. This architecture change brought the notions of Container Databases (CDB) and Pluggable databases (PDB), with the possibility to perform actions such as backups and patching at the CDB level, and allow a PDB to be easily moved from one server to another (to another CDB).

Having more than one PDB in a CDM becomes a multi-tenant architecture allowing for consolidation and easier management. All that sounds great, but  multi-tenant is not a base feature, it is a paid option on top of the Enterprise Edition Database, costing roughly 40% of the database licence.  

For that reason this major new feature went ignored by many clients and they continued using the non-CDB architecture. Looking carefully at the 12c documentation, non-CDB architecture was deprecated. It still works and is still fully supported, but it's Oracle way of saying we should move on.

Oracle OpenWorld presentations from this week show that in the next version, 20c (just round the corner), non-CDB architecture will be de-supported, forcing everyone into the CDB/PDB architecture. So, it's time to get up to speed and understand what it means for your environment.

The good news is that 19c now allows 3 PDBs without requiring a mulit-tenant licence. For 4 or more PDBs, a multi-tenant license is required. This is great news, clients that found multi-tenant to be prohibitively expensive can now start consolidating - even on Standard Edition (which never had the multi-tenant option before).

However.. do you think Oracle blocks you from adding a 4th PDB? Of course not! So while it is good news, it can also be a licensing compliance risk - it becomes easier to unplug and plug databases into containers, and easy to create 4 PDBs without having a mulit-tenant licence.
​
You need to add this to your Oracle licensing check list.. you do have one of those right?!

​

Oracle Multitenant and the pluggable database architecture was the big new feature in 12c when was released in 2013. This architecture change brought the notions of Container Databases (CDB) and Pluggable databases (PDB), with the possibility to perform actions such as backups and patching at the CDB level, and allow a PDB to be easily moved from one server to another (to another CDB).

Having more than one PDB in a CDM becomes a multi-tenant architecture allowing for consolidation and easier management. All that sounds great, but  multi-tenant is not a base feature, it is a paid option on top of the Enterprise Edition Database, costing roughly 40% of the database licence.  

For that reason this major new feature went ignored by many clients and they continued using the non-CDB architecture. Looking carefully at the 12c documentation, non-CDB architecture was deprecated. It still works and is still fully supported, but it's Oracle way of saying we should move on.

Oracle OpenWorld presentations from this week show that in the next version, 20c (just round the corner), non-CDB architecture will be de-supported, forcing everyone into the CDB/PDB architecture. So, it's time to get up to speed and understand what it means for your environment.

The good news is that 19c now allows 3 PDBs without requiring a mulit-tenant licence. For 4 or more PDBs, a multi-tenant license is required. This is great news, clients that found multi-tenant to be prohibitively expensive can now start consolidating - even on Standard Edition (which never had the multi-tenant option before).

However.. do you think Oracle blocks you from adding a 4th PDB? Of course not! So while it is good news, it can also be a licensing compliance risk - it becomes easier to unplug and plug databases into containers, and easy to create 4 PDBs without having a mulit-tenant licence.
​
You need to add this to your Oracle licensing check list.. you do have one of those right?!

A few thoughts on why you should consider using a DBA service (DBA as a Service) rather than internal staff:

Elasticity : we all know that in a crunch period we need 10 resources, then the week after we only need 3, and hiring permanent staff (let alone unionized staff!) doesn't allow this. Scaling up and doing with ad-hoc consulting resources ends up being counter-productive as you spend time ramping up, you never want to pay for the extra time for documentation, so the consultant leaves with all the knowledge, and then isn't available next time around - sound familiar?

Turnover : how many times have I seen the nightmare scenario of the one DBA that resigns and the IT Manager thrown into panic ... Hiring, training, ramp-up are all costly - if you could do it just once, documented then let turnover become a provider's problem - would that be easier?

Experience : 10 years doing the same thing day in, day out has nowhere near the same value as 10 years across multiple clients, technologies, versions, platforms, applications, etc. Imagine that same comparison between a couple of internal DBAs and whole team of external experts?

Focus : how many hours per week does your DBA spend on database administration? Probably less than 50%. Tested a database restore recently? Tested the disaster recovery scenario? Investigated the top worst SQL statements? Analyzed the capacity, growth, performance versus the capacity plan and made any adjustments or raised any concerns? Capacity plan? Yes, DBAs are supposed to do those too.

Patches: security patches, minor releases, major releases, analyzing compatibility, testing for issues.

I am willing to bet that most IT Managers are looking at this list and learning what their DBAs should really be doing! Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that they are incompetent, lazy, or do not want to be doing any of this, it is just that all the other projects and fixes that they are drawn into don't leave them enough time to focus on the database. Don't believe me, go and ask your DBA to describe a typical day!

Akuiti can help clients evaluate their needs, their costs and the possibilities to improve service and reduce risk.

On a recent project we faced the following, fairly common situation:

• Few specific deadlines and milestones
  
• Large workload with little breakdown
  
• Conflicting priorities
  
• Agile notions, such as scrums, but no agile methodology
  

As Greg McKeown says 'Set your priorities before someone else does it for you!' (I may be paraphrasing)

From many years ago, when 'Rapid Application Development' (RAD) was the buzzword, we used a tool called the Moscow list for prioritising business requirements. We decided to apply the same concept to the project team. The Moscow list of priorities for each team member for the week included the activities grouped under:

• Must
  
• Should
  
• Could
  
• Won't
  

They had to be Smart objectives (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound).

So what did drawing up a simple weekly to do list bring us?

Focus : a common language and model for people to be able to say no to requests that are not on their list of priorities. (The 'Won't' section is a way to say, I know I have to work on this, but not this week.)

Buy-in : letting team members set their own objectives gives more realistic estimates

Responsibility : putting the responsibility on each team member to reach their goals, and to raise any issues that might prevent them from doing so

Peer review : everyone's list is published and review in a scrum, so setting the bar intentionally low is not acceptable

Achievement : checking off items that everyone agrees are important gives a sense of satisfaction, achievement, and progress

Collaboration : people are more willing to help out when they realize the priority or importance of what you are doing, and can gauge the request against their own priorities.

Continuous improvement : when people miss their deadlines or their estimates are repeatedly inaccurate it gives you a chance to dig into the real reasons behind that, are the activities too high-level and need to be broken down? is the definition of the activity clear, and understood by everyone? etc

It is far from a full-blown methodology, but when a team is thrown together with the kind of constraints listed above, it is a quick a simple productivity booster. Give it a try, I will post a template.

Anyone currently running Oracle Standard Edition, or Standard Edition One needs to be aware of the licence changes brought in with 12c (Oracle 12.1.0.2 Standard Edition 2).

​Oracle has replaced SE and SE One with SE2 and has introduced new socket and CPU thread restrictions, meaning that a current SE customer may need to make the big licence step up to Enterprise Edition (EE) to remain compliant.

This looks like a not-too-subtle push for smaller customers to embrace the Oracle Database Cloud.  Could it push smaller customers away from 12c altogether ? Possibly, but Oracle seems to find that it is a risk worth taking.

Here is a link to the Oracle SE2 doc:http://www.oracle.com/us/products/database/oracle-db-se2-brief-2680836.pdf

Note to Oracle SE customers running on a VMWare cluster, you really need to look at what this licensing change means for you.
​

Whenever we hear 'Ticketing Sytem' we think Service Desk, Help Desk, Customer Support etc

A ticketing system is a way of logging activities in a centralized repository, giving traceability, searchable content and at-a-glance status reporting.

So why reserve all that functionality for help-desk services - when any team or project has the same requirements? The alternative is juggling disparate spreadsheets and emails.

It requires a shift in thinking, it shouldn't be seen as an overhead, but more as 'the' working tool for documentation, progress reporting and time tracking. When everyone understands these benefits, you shouldn't be able to ask anyone to do anything without hearing 'what's the ticket number?' If you can get everyone to end their day with a quick update of the tickets they worked on, the status, time spent, time remaining - you are a lot more informed than waiting for timesheets at the end of the week.

Don't get tied up in the tool, get started with a vanilla SaaS offering, or a prebuilt VM*, until you are used to the concepts - you can review the tools and functionalities down the road, but any basic tool will get you started. It's probably not going to replace your project plan, so don't expect it to do everything, but it is likely to provide more accurate input to track your project progress.

Add time tracking to tickets that syncs up with time sheets and project management tools - increase consistency, reduce burden of time recording.

Add priorities and dependencies to the tickets and everyone has a consistent view of what needs to get done.

Add two way email notifications and the repository gets richer by capturing all those conversations around a theme.

Add a desktop timer to easily 'punch-in' and 'punch-out' time spent on tickets.

Get up and running in minutes (literally!) with:
* Amazon Redmine AMI / downloadable VM
* Amazon OTRS AMI / downloadable VM
* Redmine online

Want to run Oracle Forms applications on mobile platforms but your budget, time constraints and the risk to your system stability are holding you back?

​No need to redevelop your system or use incomplete forms migration tools,AuraPlayer is a unique solution that allows you to seamlessly run Oracle Forms business logic on mobile devices in minutes without writing one line of new code or modifying your existing Forms.

Contact us to find out more.

Want a modernized user interface but your budget, time constraints and the risk are holding you back?


We can help you modernize your forms systems without redevelopment or incomplete Forms migration tools, and provide you with an easy, phased evolution to new technologies.

AuraPlayer is a unique solution that runs your Forms business logic seamlessly from ANY user interface. Using our wizard based toolbar, your Forms systems developed over years can be plugged into any Java, ADF, or .Net.

Contact us to find out more.