An earlier Formtek blog discussed how Oracle’s core RDBMS product is being undercut in price by both Microsoft’s SQL Server and MySQL. Most shops running Oracle know there are options out there, but most fear the risk and costs involved in moving to a different database platform.
There’s another option available now to Oracle shops that is attractive both because it is cheap and also because it is compatible with standard Oracle software. EnterpriseDB is a relational database that is fully compatible with Oracle’s flagship product. Applications written for Oracle will run on EnterpriseDB with no additional modification and Oracle administrators need little retraining to come up to speed with EnterpriseDB. EnterpriseDB is based on the Open Source PostgreSQL product.
FTD florist, a long-time Oracle user, recently chose EnterpriseDB over Oracle because of its significantly cheaper cost and superior customer service for running the external reporting within their Argo shipping administration system. Oracle’s original software quote was $240,000 which they later reduced to $120,000. But FTD instead selected the functionally-compatible EnterpriseDB Advanced Server version 8.1 product to the Oracle software for just $20,000. FTD said that the choice was easy — and at one-sixth the cost and with 500 times better customer service they claim the decision offered tremendous value.
When the FTD system began experiencing severe performance problems, they came up with a plan to separate their online marketplace from their CRM and order fulfillment system that had run on the same database. The plan involved setting up a replicated system that could off-load vendor support operations. The migration to the new EnterpriseDB system took just six weeks.
A similar story was told by Ticketline, the largest on-line ticketing agency in the UK which covers more than 8000 events per year. They recently adopted EnterpiseDB as their core database because of its robustness and scalability. Ticketline’s decision to go with EnterpriseDB came from a different path. Ticketline had first developed their system using open source PostgreSQL. After considerable growth in their business, they now felt that the layer of enhanced functionality and EnterpriseDB’s quality support would provide a better platform for them.
Oracle may not be worried yet, but this kind of story may give some Oracle shops pause to think about their current strategy.
