Case study
The challenges facing FXDMS
Fuji Xerox Document Management Solutions (FXDMS) provides business communications services to organizations across the Asia Pacific region. FXDMS was faced with aging hardware and their annual Oracle maintenance cost was perpetually high.
FXDMS had a complex Oracle install base of Database Enterprise Edition and Real Application Clusters (RAC) program licenses with various other programs that were either unneeded or underutilized. When it came time for a hardware upgrade, the company decided to seize the opportunity to evaluate their Oracle requirements and look at standardizing down to Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 (SE2).
FXDMS faced the challenge of achieving the downgrade to SE2, and at the same time addressing all their existing contractual license sets and support – all while remaining compliant. The potential for receiving an audit letter as part of Oracle’s response to the downgrade also needed to be factored in.
Negotiations trigger audit
FXDMS was fully aware of the complexities of Oracle contracts and policies, and decided to obtain the services of Palisade Compliance to assist them. We reviewed several years of overlapping contracts to establish a timeline of FXDMS’s Oracle licenses, and then conducted a full evaluation of their future license requirements.
Based on the information gathered, we helped FXDMS migrate a portion of their licenses under terms and conditions that would meet their requirements. We identified which programs were no longer needed, and how to terminate them. This resulted in ongoing Oracle maintenance cost savings without damaging other license sets – a major point of concern for FXDMS. We also created a strategy to achieve this outcome and guided FXDMS through the process of negotiating with Oracle.
As anticipated, the negotiations with the Oracle sales team triggered an audit. We continued to guide FXDMS through the audit, giving them the necessary insights and confidence to understand and pursue their rights under the complex Oracle licensing agreements.
FXDMS migrates to SE2; reduces Oracle maintenance cost by 75%!
From their work with us, FXDMS gained a strategy that enabled their smooth migration to SE2. They were able to leverage existing licenses and get the best value from new licenses without any additional compliance impact. Despite the complexity of the transaction, our guidance provided FXDMS with confidence to negotiate with Oracle in order to move, upgrade, or purchase licenses as needed. Also, we provided them with the direction and support to pass the Oracle audit without any compliance exposure.
FXDMS reduced their Oracle maintenance costs by 75%. Reducing the complexity of the Oracle database environment also had the effect of dramatically decreasing the number of database issues in their production environment.
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