Re: Is it just me, or has Oracle completely lost the plot?

On 10/23/22 18:15, Chris Taylor wrote:
> This is going to sound like old man / old technologist complaints, and
> it may be.
>
> But I am a technologist and the more I work with new versions of
> Oracle , the less and less satisfied I am with the new versions.
>
> Stuffing JSON, XML, CDC and whatever else into the database server
> *used to make sense* when the db server was the power house - when
> CPU, storage, network were expensive and your db server had all the
> horse power.
>
> Today is not that day.  Today you can spin up a middle tier cluster
> with tons of CPU power, god awful network bandwidth and amazing storage.
>
> Since 12.1 I have spent more time with support and yelling at them to
> listen and to get an engineer on the call then all the years before
> (going back to 7.1).
>
> These ORA-01555 errors that come up with everything _besides_ actual
> rollback / undo space issues are incredibly incredibly annoying.
>
> It's no wonder people are leaving Oracle in DROVES - you have the
> licensing, you have the bugs and you have the support issues.
>
> Add to that Oracle stuffs their database product with so much stuff
> that no one uses, its no wonder people are leaving.
>
> I'm so fed up and looking forward to getting off Oracle and re-routing
> my career into something new (postgres, snowflake, dynamo db ,
> anything besides Oracle and their issues).
>
> End of rant.  Just wondering if I'm alone in this or not?
>
> Chris
>
Well, let me play the devil's advocate and defend Oracle. Oracle still has the best technology, bar none. One important technology advantage over anybody else are global indexes. It is not possible to create a non-prefixed unique key over partitioned table in Postgres, MySQL or SQL Server.

As for people leaving Oracle, it depends on the project. If a cheaper database is good enough, why pay for much more expensive Oracle? However, if your project includes high availability, text indexes, partitioning, encryption and the impeccable ability to recover as much data as possible, your only choice is Oracle. Oracle has by far the best technology.

Oracle is going from the mass production model to the boutique model: making the expensive database for those who need it. Oracle RDBMS, until version 9, was Model-T: relatively cheap and sold en masse to everyone. That has stretched their support, brought a few lawsuits and presented some problems with doing business. Now, they want to be more like a Cadillac or Mercedes. Personally, I drive a Kia because that's all I need. Have I had special needs, like if running a limo service, I would have needed Cadillac or Mercedes cars. Relational database market is the same. It's flooded by low cost alternatives, which can get most of the jobs done. Oracle changed their business model and decided to go after the high end of the market. I hope it works for them. However, I did learn Postgres and I did help with converting one application from Oracle to PostgreSQL.

Many people have switched. The world of PostgreSQL is full of former Oraclites like me, even some former Oracle Aces. It looks like Kevin Closson is not the only "Oracle Ace (ret.)" any more. For some unfathomable reason, people don't want to make their livelihood dependent on Oracle Corp. There is no reason to get angry about that. The only purpose of any corporation, including of course, Oracle Corp, is to make money for their shareholders. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. The mission of Oracle Corp is not to make computer geeks like you and me happy, their mission is to make money.

-- 
Mladen Gogala
Database Consultant
Tel: (347) 321-1217
https://dbwhisperer.wordpress.com

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