back to article As Oracle's AWS deal completes Big 3 triumvirate, questions remain over licensing

At Big Red's recent CloudWorld shindig in Las Vegas, Matt Garman, CEO of AWS, looked comfortable and relaxed being hosted by arch rival Oracle. Since 2018, Big Red has been pitching its second generation cloud OCI against its market-dominating rival with limited success. In 2019, Ellison claimed Oracle's technology is more …

  1. Irongut Silver badge

    Since when did Oracle win in databases? Mr Mueller may think so as a consultant but in my almost three decades as a developer I have never worked on an Oracle database, have never been asked to work on an Oracle database and the last time a customer mentioned Oracle to me would have been about 20 years ago. Oracle, like DB2, is a ghost from a bygone era.

    If he had said PostgreSQL had won in databases I'd have agreed with him but Oracle? Funniest thing I've heard so far today.

    1. whiz

      wrt RDBMS Oracle clearly is the top dog.

      just cause you never worked on Oracle , make you the deviation not the norm

      the so called ghost from bygone era is here to stay and eats a heavy lunch

      PS - i work across multi clouds. and i dont work in oracle (typical snide remark when folks disagree)

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. 'arold

      It's everywhere mate, and - this is my personal view - it is very difficult to leave due to Oracle devs and dba's following Oracle's guidelines and cramming the database full of business logic.

      Other database devs for the most part appear to just use stored procs to wrap CRUD statements. Oracle devs put the whole business in them.

      1. disgruntled yank

        > Oracle devs and dba's following Oracle's guidelines and cramming the database full of business logic.

        Guilty as charged.

        But what about Microsoft Dynamics? It ships with many stored procedures, and I don't think they are all just CRUD wrappers.

        1. 'arold

          > But what about Microsoft Dynamics? It ships with many stored procedures, and I don't think they are all just CRUD wrappers.

          Damn, Microsoft Dynamics must be the greatest oxymoron since Microsoft Works.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Look at any top 10 list of databases and you’ll find Oracle at the top and PostgreSQL usually at number 4 behind MySQL and SQLServer.

  2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "a more proximal arrangement"

    Wow. Talk about anthropomorphisizing stuff.

    Oh, now I get it : an arrangement that suits Oracle's belly button bottom line ?

    Sure. Why didn't you say so ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "a more proximal arrangement"

      Eh-eh-eh! Proximal could be the new black cloud of the datacenter though, as in "Proximal Workspace architecture", "Proximal Policy" for "Cloud Task Scheduling", "Proximal Virtual Network Embedding" (for load balancing), or just plain proxmox ...

      Then again, it could also just as well be a side-effect of plus-sized modeling of related delvish languages, with associated ventriloquism and circumlocutions (eg. Proximal: A game-changer that meticulously beckons a nestled tapestry of vital complexities) ... (or not!)

  3. disgruntled yank

    Sorry?

    "last year Microsoft folded SQL Server,"

    What exactly does this mean? I can go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-downloads and download the SQL Server 2022 for on-premises use. My employer uses Dynamics/Great Plains, and we have received no panicked calls from our cloud provider stating that the databases will have to be ported to who knows what.

    1. 'arold

      Re: Sorry?

      Agreed, there's no way sqlserver is folded. It's part of their vendor lock in - not just on prem, but to strong arm people to their cloud too.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The licensing picture is fairly out of date at this point.

    Oracle haven't released a new DB option/pack since 2013. And those were new functionality rather than charging for preexisting features.

    Their business model changed with the cloud.

    Recent opening of some aspects of their licensing is exactly that.

    I'm obviously not saying they've changed sides and are the good guys or anything, just pointing out that people making a living out of calling Oracle the bogeyman seem motivated to serve themselves rather than customers.

    1. Ericle

      Can you expand on "The licensing picture is fairly out of date at this point" please?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Well the Oracle licensing contracts that are still used and in many cases under active support are very much still a thing

        BUT

        in terms of 'classic' Oracle DB (DBCS or Base Database) on cloud it is really offered in rather coarse grained bundles of the options and you can pay for the license via consumption based pricing. If you are looking at Autonomous Database then it is pretty much one offering. Sure you can convert your licenses via core factors or whatever and BYOL them to Oracle cloud DB services but.. Oracle would much rather you moved to cloud than bought more db options an d would rather your DB ran on Autonomous DB (on Exadata hardware) than on customer managed VM's

        1. Ericle

          Thanks! Agreed.

  5. Michael Strorm Silver badge
    Trollface

    Looking at the thumbnail that accompanies this and every Oracle-related story...

    ...one is struck by the realisation that, for a guy supposedly that rich, Larry Ellison's private jet is surprisingly small when you see it close up.

    His alleged luxury yacht is even less impressive!

  6. This is my handle
    WTF?

    So, they're throwing in the towel on OCI?

    Not the API, the Cloud Offering?

    1. ronkee

      Re: So, they're throwing in the towel on OCI?

      It's the other taking off life support. It can breath on it's own. OCI makes money.

      This is more about giving the database some love and also the logical consequence of their effort to shrink OCI into smaller and smaller dedicated regions.

      It's more practical (for customers) to add racks in other hyperscalers than faff about with interconnects that could fail (and logging, telemetry, IAM, admin, security etc.) This is where multicloud is putting a piece of one cloud into another.

      1. Peter-Waterman1

        Re: So, they're throwing in the towel on OCI?

        Nah OCI is dead, Oracle is being sued for blowing up "Cloud" revenue and tricking investors

        https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/11/oracle_cloud_sales_case/

        1. ronkee

          Re: So, they're throwing in the towel on OCI?

          Yes that one is.

          They build a new one from scratch afterwards.

  7. whiz

    with this offering, its clear that AWS failed to replace Oracle as an option

    AWS clearly has superb products but they arent able to meet all requirements

    Something Oracle failed also failed to learn early on

    Multicloud across all top 3 hyperscalers is nice to see

    Finally egos are kept aside and tech takes over.

    The ability to use multi-brand products in hyperscalers will allow for boundless innovation.

  8. Vulture@C64

    I suspect that Oracle DB is no longer targeted by modern development, but Oracle makes a lot of business apps and ERP stuff which obviously use their own database.

    Personally, with past experience of Oracle, I'd not touch it with somebody else's bargepole, but if you have legacy Oracle apps that need it or even if your business likes running on the edge, and buys Oracle apps now, it's all run on the old Orible DB.

    Given the cost of running MS SQL Server in the cloud I'd be surprised if anybody was using it these days for anything other than legacy apps.

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