Re: Sorry, but...
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 18:41:55 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <5272ae70-b30d-473c-87c7-fcaa680d467c_at_t30g2000vbx.googlegroups.com>
On Jan 5, 5:42 pm, Noons <wizofo..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 6, 5:37 am, Eric <e..._at_deptj.eu> wrote:
>
> > Essentially, Cerner is a provider of db services. They provide software
> > for the Health Care industry, and I wouldn't be at all suprised if they
> > had that number of hosted customers (though other options are available
> > and some of the databases will be test databases for individual
> > customers). Think of each of those databases as a complete hospital
> > including all patient records, both administrative and clinical.
>
> Yes, I understood perfectly what they do and why they "need" so many
> databases, although I tend to agree with Mladen that it would not be
> needed if indeed they are a service provider and they looked after
> efficiencies through consolidation.
>
> > But you are right that 9.5 million is not really very significant. I am
> > inclined to think that the savings are on other admin and monitoring
> > products rather than on Oracle.
>
> That's why this thing is completely inconsistent. First of all the
> "other products", presuming they were management ones, would not be
> licensed for each database: they would be an across the board
> license. Same would be the case with EM and we all know it is free,
> don't we? (NOT!)
>
> So exactly how much was spent on EM to "save" the $9.5M? You see, as
> soon as I hear something like this news bit, I read it as newspeak for
> "we 'saved' heaps, but we won't tell you how much we spent on the new
> product and it will all be well hidden in the books". Which is
> exactly how these things are handled nowadays. And why I find this
> type of news piece a total nonsense driver.
>
> But let's not allow common sense and truth interfere with "good"
> marketing...
As for licensing, EM is free. The diagnostic/tuning packs(AWR, advisors etc) are not, but as I also stated, if you paid for any of it, you got ripped - so I would tend to believe it was deeply discounted 80%+ or thrown in "for free" due to the amount they spend on the RDBMS+RAC+OtherOptionOfTheDay licenses. Again, there are/were third party tools that could have indeed cost them in excess of $10M/ yr for this size data center. You may choose to discount this... I wouldn't.
""Noons to onedbguru:
Quote:
Once again: what the heck has that got to do with EM?
Since when has EM helped anyone REDUCE the licenssing costs?
Are you on this universe yet? "
I am... are you?? :) :) :) :) So, Noons, given the paragraph above, I would state unequivocally that it is indeed possible to save $9.5M on licensing cost alone. He stated a 30% load increase per DBA, **in this case**, it does NOT appear they would included staffing costs in this savings as he stated "capital costs". Personnel are not capital expenditures. I would not discount the marketing hype having been in THIS shop and other shops of this size. (2000+ database instances). Like you, I do not generally take marketing hype at face value. I would not have a problem with the validity of the claims in this one given what I know about this company - which you also seem to have discounted.
As for Mladen's consolidation comments, for technical, legal (HIPPA and other "medical device" laws) and methodology reasons, "consolidation" is absolutely out of the question for this "hosted" option. And as for Jeroen's (TheBoss) calculations, I doubt they laid off anyone, they just made the staff that already existed do a LOT more by adding more "clients" to their already overloaded plate (+30%). The culture of this company is "work hard, play hard" translated: "we will burn your candle at both ends and toss you aside when you no longer can or want to put in 50-60+hrs a week for less $$ per hour than you think. However, we do provide the occasional beer Friday and an occasional party at a theme park". What that also means is that if you happen to make $75K/year, instead of a reasonable $36/hr you actually make closer to $24/hr and doing the work of threefour people. (KC cost of living is still quite reasonable, so, that salary is in the ballpark for the area. According to simplyhired.com, the average for an Oracle DBA in KC area is ~$82K.)
Jeroen, I also would not characterize any database/application that can mean the difference between life and death (literally) as "average" :) :) You may or may not have seen a commercial about the old dude on a motorcycle saying how his medical insurance company caught a potential problem because he was prescribed two drugs from 2 different doctors that taken together could be fatal. This software has had that feature going back almost 7-10 years. If the system is down, patients can be at risk as doctors may not have access to all pertinent information concerning an individual patient. Therefore, redundancy is a MAJOR factor in the design of this "hosted" option. Received on Thu Jan 05 2012 - 20:41:55 CST