I hear this aspiration from a growing number of organizations. Sometimes as a quite literal question. This however is merely half of a wish. Apparently, organizations want to quit with one thing — but have not yet stipulated what they desire instead. What is the objective that is pursued here? Only to get rid of Oracle? It will become clear why you should give a considerable thought about dropping Oracle, or any other vendors’ technology, when you’re not pleased with your current IT situation. You need to focus on the actual problems and objectives and define the suitable roadmap to fit your real needs. It turns out that the quest is usually for modernization and flexibility - and Oracle can very well be a part of that future. Organizations with decades of investment in Oracle technology sometimes (and increasingly) express a wish to move away from Oracle. In this session, we will first explore where the desire to move away from Oracle might come from. Then we describe what the term Oracle represents — more than 2.000 products on all layers in the technology stack and in different business areas. Finally, we map out what the ‘moving away from’ consists of: defining where you ‘move to’ and subsequently actually going there. It will become clear why you should give considerable thought about dropping Oracle, or any other vendors’ technology, when you’re not pleased with your current IT situation. You need to focus on the actual problems and objectives and define the suitable roadmap to fit your real needs. It turns out that the quest is usually for modernization and flexibility - and Oracle can very well be a part of that future. Original storyline in this Medium Article: https://medium.com/real-vox/what-if-companies-say-help-me-move-away-from-oracle-ffbbc95afc4f

1. Classificatie: vertrouwelijk
Help me move
away from
Oracle … or not
Lucas Jellema
Architect & CTO AMIS | Conclusion

2. Classificatie: vertrouwelijk
Lucas Jellema
CTO for AMIS | Conclusion
Cloud Solution Architect
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day
lucas.jellema@amis.nl | technology.amis.nl | @lucasjellema | lucas-jellema

3. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Who Am I?
• Started at and with Oracle in 1994
• Oracle Database 7, PL/SQL, Forms, Reports, Case 5.0/5.1 & Designer/2000
• Since 2002 working at AMIS | Conclusion
• Worked with > 50 companies
• data, end user applications, integration, agile, cloud, DevOps, IoT
• (almost) always Oracle technology
• Last few years: Help me!
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

4. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Who is asking? Why?
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day
Oracle License Management Service

5. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

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Publiek
Expensive is subjective
or
Cost = operating expenses + maintenance & life cycle management costs
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

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Publiek
Migration makes financial sense?
• migration costs = requirement analysis + design + implementation + test + train + risk
mitigation + …
• consider additional post migration benefits
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

8. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
What is meant?
• Move away from …
• but: where to?
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

9. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
What is meant?
• Move away from …
• but: where to?
• And what is “Oracle”?
• why specifically move away from Oracle?
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

10. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Oracle moving away from Oracle
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

11. Classificatie: Public
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What is Oracle?
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

12. Classificatie: Public
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What is Oracle?
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

13. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
What is Oracle?
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

14. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
What is Oracle?
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

15. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Ce ci
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

16. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Ce ci
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day
Ceci n’est pas

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Publiek
Oracle Database
• Is much more than just a relational store of data
and SQL query engine
• Application Platform
• PL/SQL
• Stored Java
• MLE (multi language engine)
• Embedded PL/SQL Gateway, ORDS
• APEX
• Oracle Database features
• Audit
• Virtual Private Database
• Edition Based Redefinition
• Flashback
• Spatial and Graph
• Advanced Analytics and Machine Learning
• …
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day
<> || >>
PostgreSQL,
MySQL, SQL Server,
AWS RDS, NoSQL

18. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Oracle in your organization also includes
• Tools
• Processes
• People, skills and knowledge (and feelings)
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

19. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Early ‘90s
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

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Before…
• Apps (& Mobile Phones)
• Internet
• Agile
• GB
• Virtualization
• eBusiness Suite (but SAP was there)
• Linux
• NoSQL
• Open Source
• Solid State Drive
• Cloud
• Internet of Things
• Climate Change / Global Warming
• Metaverse
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

21. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Era of
• Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) and SQL
• (System R,) Oracle, INGRESS, Paradox, FoxPro, Sybase, DB2, Informix, SQL
Server
• First rollout of IT in mid-size organizations and across all industries
• initially terminals, then PCs and
subsequently Windows GUI & mouses (2-tier Client/Server)
• much custom development (hardly any COTS available)
• ERD, Enterprise Datamodel and Enterprise [wide] Database
• normalization
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

22. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Era of
• Strong integrity rules – implemented through constraints
• Fat Database – heaps of PL/SQL (triggers & packages)
• Applications consisted of:
• Oracle Database, PL/SQL, Oracle Forms, Oracle Reports
• Monolith – avant la lettre
• The DBA ruled supreme
• guardians of data model, data, database
• Companies gaining competitive edge
on cutting (& bleeding) technology edge
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

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Publiek
Companies gaining competitive advantage
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

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Publiek
What happened since then?
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day
2000 2020
2010
DevOps
λ

25. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day
What also happened since then?

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Publiek
Once upon a time
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day
A Typical Oracle
customer
high incident rate
not modern
legacy
business critical
custom software
end of scale
little expertise left
on applications and tech stack
fragile
no tests, no specs, no docs
expensive: high TCO
high technical debt
no evolution
monolith
unattractive technology stack
for young talent
unsupported
inflexible
security-challenged
business  IT gap
old

27. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
We ruined the word “Legacy”
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

28. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
We ruined the word “Legacy”
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

29. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Stuck in a not so good place
• Problems
• Disappointments
• Frustrations
• And Oracle always seems to be part of it
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

30. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
That is really what they want to move away from
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

31. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Any 15-20+ year old IT system
• qualifies to be moved away from
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

32. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
What is desired?
• A better place
• What does that mean?
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

33. Classificatie: Public
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How to go there?
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

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It does not exist
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

35. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Oracle
Cloud
PaaS
Any IaaS
Oracle
Database
Any PaaS
SaaS
Retain (& Refurbish)
Rehost
Repurchase
Replatform Refactor/Rearchitect
Oracle
Database
Autonomous
Database
NoSQL
Elastic
RDBMS
DWH/
Data Lake
Oracle
Cloud
IaaS/DBaaS
Rehost
Oracle
Database
Oracle
Database Retire
Analysis of Current Systems
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day
6R Strategy for Finding your Route

36. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
My Recommendations
• Appreciate the tremendous value in your applications, data(bases),
people, processes
• consider including it explicitly as assets on your balance sheet
• Focus on Business Value provided by IT systems
• make sure your IT enables business – it is a means to that end
• agile Dev and Ops – short time to market, high release frequency
• do custom IT only for company specific and competitively relevant:
buy (COTS/SaaS) before reuse before build
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

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Publiek
My Recommendations - 2
• Analyze and Manage Technical and other Debt
• software “-abilities”
• Modernize Application architecture
• “microservices”, decoupling, reduce monolithism
• Refine Data architecture
• stand-alone domains, interfaces
• no sub-interface cross-domain logic (such as FKs)
• metadata management and data governance
• apply CQRS (command query responsibility) and allow tailor
made read only data replicas
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

38. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
My Recommendations - 3
• Automate your IT processes
• software engineering, platform virtualization, infra as code, CI/CD, no touch Ops
• Design for and run on Elastic Platform (dynamic scale up and down by
horizontally scaling out and in) and for managed & Pay per Use
• Do Life Cycle Management:
constant technical and functional evaluation and evolution
• know what you have,
• what is used and whom and what for,
• what value does it generate and what does it cost to operate
• what is available in the world around you,
• what is the gap and what are the cost and benefit of closing it
• keep moving forward and keep talking with business
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

39. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Backwards Compatibility can make Complacent
• After 25 years – my SQL, PL/SQL and Forms skills are still relevant
• and even [most of] my code will still run
• Kudos to Oracle!
• But beware – all of us: do not get complacent
• Make sure your code is not
backwards compatible
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

40. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Embrace and Leverage “The New”
• Concepts, Patterns, Tools, Ways of Working, Features, Technology
• Shame on you if you
• are still using (+) for outer join
• include DECODE in any SQL you write
• type SYSDATE instead of
SYSTIMESTAMP
• have never tried out WITH clause
in your SQL queries
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

41. Classificatie: Public
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Ora of Success
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

42. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Help me move away from Oracle…
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

43. Classificatie: Public
Publiek
Help me move away from Oracle to … Oracle
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day

44. Classificatie: vertrouwelijk
The End
Help me move away from Oracle ... or not - LVOUG Day
lucas.jellema@amis.nl | technology.amis.nl | @lucasjellema | lucas-jellema
liels paldies
thank you very much
hartelijk dank