Busted Oracle finance cloud leaves Rutgers Uni unable to foot bills Rutgers University is struggling to pay its bills on time amid a prolonged outage of its Oracle-powered management systems. It is claimed this IT failure led to power outages within its campus after supplies were cut off due to non-payment. The hedgerow-league college, in New Jersey, US, has publicly admitted its Cornerstone …
Oracle and Rutgers, one is a third rate (if lucky) software vendor while the other is a third rate state university. Rutgers has had such poor reputation that many New Jersey college age kids never considered going to the "flagship" state university unless they were desperate. (Rutgers is the official state university of New Jersey; there is no 'University of New Jersey'.) So it seems like they were made for each other.
What's to stop someone trying this: "I supplied you 10,000 widgets, and haven't been paid!"
Or this: "Yes, I definitely paid all my tuition this year"?
I visited New Brunswick once for a college tour, it was the most depressing experience of my life. For you Brits, New Brunswick is a series of dark grey concrete monstrosities at the edge of a polluted slick of a river populated by dimwitted frat boys. A bit like Hull, but without the charm.
For you Brits, New Brunswick is a series of dark grey concrete monstrosities at the edge of a polluted slick of a river populated by dimwitted frat boys. A bit like Hull, but without the charm.
Sounds like it should be twinned with the University of York - substitute "geese pond" for river and the similarity's uncanny.
Beer icon in memory of happy times spent in Vanbrugh/Alcuin/Langwith bars.
"Sounds like it should be twinned with the University of York - substitute "geese pond" for river and the similarity's uncanny.
Beer icon in memory of happy times spent in Vanbrugh/Alcuin/Langwith bars."
It was ducks, not geese ;-)
And what about Derwent and Goodricke? Depending on your vintage, "old Derwent snug" was very nice. Alcuin as a 50's cocktail bar was awesome.
It was ducks, not geese ;-)
Really? I remember it being Canada Geese, but it was over 20 years ago so I'm probably mistaken. Add geriatric anatidaeslexia to my list of foibles.
And what about Derwent and Goodricke? Depending on your vintage, "old Derwent snug" was very nice. Alcuin as a 50's cocktail bar was awesome.
I'd forgotten about those. Good call.
On a side note, I went back to the campus about 3 years ago, and discovered that the place had been extensively redeveloped. So "dark grey concrete monstrosities" is perhaps a little unfair.
lmao you are BEING generous...i live there and i love it so much i would not mind if some one just napalm the whole town and steam rolled the area flat....trust me it would be an improvement and all local mini towns in area residents would throw a party that would last years!
"....or shrinkage?" Unfortunately (for the Rutgers' staff) that's unlikely. You see, once Cloud operators have your data locked up in their systems, it's like they have your genitals in a vice - tearing yourself away will hemorrhage money and probably kill your business, either through outright expense or through loss of business during the exit. The majority of migrations to the Cloud I've seen have also seen "efficiencies" made amongst the staff that could provide a fallback service, ensuring that it's even harder for the victim to tear away even if they could extract their data. I'm pretty certain the next quarter will still see fees from Rutgers in the Oracle "plus" column and some dean desperately insisting through gritted teeth that "the worst is behind us, the partnership with Oracle is working", etc., etc.
As far as I can tell, this is Oracle Cloud Fusion (their new puppy, first announced in 2006 when they acquired PeopleSoft).
http://cornerstone.rutgers.edu/sites/fst/files/Cornerstone%20overview%20-%20July%202016.pdf
But it would be nice for the article to specify, seeing as Oracle has a number of different ERP systems handy to sell. Some of which might even work.
It would be nice but we get the feeling it's a customized package of ERP products being phased in gradually - the best we can determine at the moment is that it's a suite of tools running on Oracle Cloud Financials and Oracle Cloud Fusion.
C.
"The full rollout of Cornerstone is set to be completed by 2018."
Preceded by a transitional period of public humiliation with no recourse. Oracle is the current champ at playing as the Lockheed-Martin of the IT world.
Isn't private sector out-sourced pixie dust supposed to make this kind of thing impossible, what with greater efficiencies, less waste and all that?
It's the future of everything! What could possibly go wrong? Entrust everything to us!
What's that you say? You can't access the cloud because your electricity has been cut off due to a problem with the cloud based payments system........Er, just log onto the "emergency" bit of the system, oh sorry you can't do that either can you?
How about you use the wifi at the coffee shop on the high street?
I'm not sure how it works in the States but cutting off the power due to the non payment of a bill is the very last extreme measure taken by a supply company after they have exhausted all other remediative actions. Putting the Oracle issues aside, I draw the conclusion that Rutgers are seemingly totally inept at FO management by default if they have no manual backup process to receipt and match an invoice to make an emergency manual payment to a regular supplier for something as important as keeping the lights and power on.
As I said, maybe in the States things are different in terms of how they go about dealing with business customers in default.
Here in the States, the first thing they do is cut you off and "negotiate" your account settlement; if you are lucky you will get a 24 hour notice, by email. This email usually carries the header "Important Notice" thus guaranteeing it will go straight into the junk mail folder...
Typically one has to a couple of months in arrears in the US to be endanger of an utility cut off. So there is plenty of incompetence in the Rutger's finance department not to keep on top the utility bills. But this the NJ state government at work, an outfit that makes your average PHB look like brilliant business leader. (Originally from the hellhole of NJ)
But... who is the most hated by the El Reg commentards then?
1) Oracle (placed 1st because they are mentioned in the topic title)
2) Microsoft (for Windows 10)
3) Apple
4) A.N. Other (please specify who and why)
5) All of 1,2 & 3 Equally
Don't be shy now.
"during the period of parallel running of the old and new systems?"
HAHAHAHAHA! Yeah, that didn't happen. Nor did they do an adequate amount of training nor did they beta test or listen to their potential users enough.
On the bright side, we currently can't pay the parking office for our yearly tags yet!
poor widdle snowflakes, don't know what to do on their own. Things like this USED to be handled by accountants and accounting staff. But now it's Oracle cloudy something. Maybe it's time to hire a temp for the interrim? Someone who learned how to add and subtract would be a plus.
and 1 more reason why "the cloud" is HIGHLY overrated... and 'higher' education as well.
NJ State Government entities are often required by the legislature to outsource new systems, when there are perfectly capable programmers and developers already employed by the State and its entities who can slowly, carefully, upgrade a system. This is a problem throughout all of NJ Government as well as entities like universities and quasi-independent authorities.
Rutgers has long been a leader in computer science; it was one of the original ARPAnet nodes. If Rutgers had been permitted to do the upgrade in-house, this wouldn't be happening. I've seen this same sort of screwup happen in other NJ state agencies as some well-connected vendor gets a lot of money to put the State in a worse position than it was before.
We'd call Rutgers a "Public Ivy" since they're a state sponsored and/or land grant school that offers an education comparable to an Ivy League university, and has roughly the same level of prestige but for a hell of a lot less in terms of Tuition and with a much easier admissions policy since they're public.
I finished my bachelor's at a so-called "Hidden Ivy", but I have no idea how admissions was for normal entrants or transfers because my Brigade's career counselor did most of the leg work. I was in the US Army Student Detachment, a program that Training and Doctrine Command had (and maybe still has) for Active Duty Soldiers to finish up their degree while still getting their pay, allowances, and Tricare in exchange for assisting the School's ROTC cadre with training the ROTC Cadets, and also extending your contract (or outright re-enlisting) for however many years you're in the detachment.
Hedgerow league would work I guess, though aren't most hedgerows made out of Ivy?
Oracle's system worked just fine.
Its just so ridiculously expensive that everything Rutgers tried to pay got kicked back for insufficient funds.
Give it a couple days and you'll be seeing the university's President standing next a Jersey Turnpike off-ramp holding a sign asking for a couple million in spare change, along with their gofundme URL and a bitcoin wallet address.
"If you are contacted by a vendor who is requesting immediate payment, please advise that we have an emergency process in place, and your unit will submit a request for expedited payment," the bulletin reads.
That should put the crims on notice to submit phony invoices, El Reg. Nicely done.
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