back to article Scotland strikes national Oracle deal

Procurement Scotland has agreed to pay Oracle £18.7m to obtain a four year unlimited use software licence and support for around 80 public bodies. The deal covers software and support for existing Oracle customers in Scotland's central government departments, local authorities, fire and police services. Procurement Scotland …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    POSTGRE

    Can't they just bloody go with Postgre? Why fire department needs Oracle, why? Same about schools...

    FAIL

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    oh gosh

    nobody screaming go freeware !!!

    oh wait no that's only on MS products my bad

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sure...

    That in 4 years time when the whole of Scotland is dependant on it the renewal deal will be very interesting....

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Pfff

    Well at least its not Microsoft.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Hail the customer lock-in!!!

    Probably what Scotland Procurement ignores is that NOBODY changes the databases an application runs under. Once it's built, application will remain using that database literally forever. Except when it's built on top of Access, of course.

    So each new Oracle instance is one more knot in their degree of lock in with Oracle.

    As one of the posters above suggest, what is wrong with Postgres or (heaven forbid) MySQL in some contexts? Are they really believing that collateral savings coming from having a single DB brand to support are going to offset the Oracle yearly maintenance costs? Surely those costs are going to increase as they increase the number of licences/machines.

    Oh, sometimes I miss so much reality.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 2nd June 2009 08:18 GMT

    FANBOI!!! Bet you feel stupid now!

    <pedant>what exactly is postgre?</pedant> PostgreSQL I'm sure would have been investigated, however, what is the level of support available? FOSS is great. Most people understand the community ethos, however most of the so called "IT Pro's" out there feel scared without the safety net of a support contract.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Oh gods

    Now when my tax gets screwed up, I'll know why. Oracle has got to be one of the worst product suites known to man. The amount of trouble I have had implementing it is untrue, the documentation is total mince and the number of dependencies/conflicts is enough to make a man weep. Cue the fanbois.....

    Postgre/MySQL are simply not up to the job.

    That leaves SQL Server. And much as it pains me to say it (M$ bad, m'kay?) they probably should have gone with that.

    And if anyone mentions DB2......

  8. Jolyon

    How much Oracle already?

    Obviously this will lead to further Oracle lock-in but you might well see this as acceptable if the core systems are there already.

    As has been pointed out nobody changes the database an application uses - if there's a lot of Oracle already (meaning switching away would be costly / impossible) and this provides a cost saving on that then where's the problem?

    -

    @Mac Phreak - people feel scared without the safety net of home insurance or brakes on their cars. If you have a company that stands to lose millions in penalties should an application fail then it would be idiocy to go with anything that does not *guarantee* a level of service. Fear / avoidance of unacceptable risk, call it what you will, there's a very good reason why people who don't overuse exclamation marks do want the suppliers of their software to put their money where their mouths are.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @mac phreak

    Most of those "IT Pros" have SLAs they have to abide by - try getting support for PostgreSQL at 0300 (for those Americans reading, that's 3am in grown-up time). The IT Pros MUST have someone at the end of the line that knows what they're talking about and they need them there fast. Oracle provides that and yes it's expensive but if the ultimate cost is someone's life or a regulatory fine (which can amount to millions) you do actually get what you pay for.

    The community supported projects have their place - it's just not in the critical path of any serious business or service.

    @Oh Gods

    SQL Server??? Are you joking? SQL Server is the biggest pile of maundering donkey flop on the planet. No WAY this should be put in an admin critical application never mind business critical.

  10. Roberto Panacek
    Thumb Up

    seesm like a good deal to me

    The public sector in Scotland has already invested substantially in Oracle and this new deal offers all public sector bodies as much database and associated management tools as they can use for the next 4 years. At the end of the 4 yr period the licences are declared and then pass in perpetuity to each public sector body. The deal only went ahead in the first place because there is already a significant estate in existence.

    A lot of the Oracle use in the public sector relates to vendor solutions running on an Oracle databases e.g. Council X buys a housing system from vendor Y and the underlying technology is Oracle. By centralising support into a single deal like this, the Scottish Government will reduce the maintenance cost that Council X pays to vendor Y as a portion of that maintenance cost paid by Council X to Vendor Y goes to Oracle.

    Also, there is a move in Government in Scotland to share public services and this deal could be important. If Council X wishes to share its new Oracle based housing system with Council W, it will now be able to do so without having to upgrade its database to a full rights licence. This has been a barrier to sharing systems in the past and it has now gone away. Replicate htis across the whole of the public sector in Scotland and I think you'll find this is a pretty astute move.

  11. LPF

    To be fair

    If it was a rubbish product I could understand, but when all is said and done, oracle has got were it

    has because , their db can handle huge data sets without falling done every two seconds. Its expensive true., but they aren't built on bought in code with a slapped on nice gui. cough cough ;)

    In the database world in terms of speed and rock solid combo its DB2 and Oracle and has been for years and they did not get their by buying people off, they got there by getting the job done.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @mac phreak

    no, not really sorry to dissapoint you

    The above 4/6 comments are nothing against the 100 odd comments MS attracts !

    anyway who you callin Fanboi

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wahay!

    Looking for an excuse to convince the Missus move back north, just needed a strong enough reason to leverage my DBA skills. It's local government, there has to be a never ending list of problems to sort out!

    Mountains, sheep and heather, here I come!

  14. Syneil

    Re: Hail the customer lock-in!!!

    Existing systems using other DB technologies won't have to switch to Oracle. Redevelopments might be pressured into doing so, but they aren't especially common (probably systems pertaining to the Scottish Census will be replaced each time at the most often). There are systems in Scottish Government using MySQL, HSQL, Ingres (ffs), MS SQL, and of course Oracle, and probably more. They will continue to do so.

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