Oracle Spatial and Graph & Advanced Analytics – Is there a cost saving opportunity?

Introduction

On December 5th 2019, Oracle decided to bundle the functionalities of Spatial & Graph and Advanced Analytics (formerly called Data Mining) in their Oracle Database licenses. This is great news for end-users since it is no longer required to buy these licenses separately. But what does this mean for customers that already purchased Spatial & Graph or Advanced Analytics licenses?

Unfortunately, Oracle is only willing to provide these benefits to new users of Spatial & Graph and/or Advanced Analytics. Oracle requires existing users to continue paying support for these historical licenses, despite the fact that these functionalities are nowadays part of the existing Oracle Database Enterprise Edition licenses.

What is applicable to me?

As an existing user there are ways to still realise cost savings. Depending on your contractual setup, there are two possible situations:

Situation 1:

Oracle Spatial and Graph and/or Advanced Analytics (Data Mining) are purchased on a separate order and have a separate CSI number. In this case you can terminate the support maintenance fees for these licenses, without any repricing, and generate direct savings. 

Situation 2:

Oracle Spatial and Graph and/or Advanced Analytics (Data Mining) are purchased as part of an order which includes other Oracle programs as well. In case you would like to terminate the support fees for these licenses, Oracle will apply their “Pricing following reduction of licenses or support level” clause as included in their Technical Support Policies. In short, customers are in 99% of the cases told by Oracle Support that their support maintenance fees remain unchanged. But there are solutions to fix this.

If you share your support renewal contract with us, we can help you determine the best option to optimize your spend. Direct savings could include: avoidance of indexation, cancellation of support for un-used licenses and more. This all depends on the details in your support renewal document.

Customer case – Spatial & Graph payments credited

One of our customers had to renew their support maintenance on December 11th, 2019. The customer decided to renew the support maintenance by the end of November, and then Oracle announced, on December 5th, the new bundling change. After a number of escalations within Oracle, SoftwareONE was able to help the customer get their money back as Spatial & Graph was purchased on a separate order with a unique CSI.

Oracle’s guidance on this change – is it clear enough?

SoftwareONE asked Oracle’s VP for Global Licensing and Advisory Services, VP for Spatial & Graph and Senior Director for Communications and Sales Effectiveness to come up with a unified, complete and accurate way of informing customers pro-actively on what this change entails for each individual end-user. This request was based on the large amount of questions and un-clarities end-users are having as a result of this change. Unfortunately, no action was taken by Oracle yet, despite numerous requests.

SoftwareONE & B-lay find it important that end-users are informed in a complete and accurate manner to avoid surprises and problems at a later stage. We are therefore more than welcome to answer any questions you may have with regards to this change.

What to do if Spatial is part of the contract?

To set the right expectations: Oracle will most likely not provide you a credit as we were able to achieve in the customer situation earlier explained. But when Spatial and Graph or Advanced Analytics (Data Mining) is part of your Oracle contract, SoftwareONE and B-lay can help you to reduce existing support renewal bills. Please share the support renewal agreement with us and we will setup a call or meeting to discuss the possibilities. 

 This article has been co-written together with Roy Reijnen from SoftwareONE.