Business justification for Oracle db server?

[database_prof]

Hello! I need to write business justification for Oracle db server
being installed in our company. We have issue with many small Access,
Excell spreadsheet data storages, and need to have reliable and up to
date database of inventory. We also hope to have web front end access
for users to view and modify that data.
I vote for Oracle, but will need to write down business justification
for it before proceeding with using server and installing Oracle.

Can somebody throw good ideas on how and what to put in business
justification for this case, maybe example of already written
justification?

[Malcolm Dew-Jones]

database_prof (***@yahoo.com) wrote:
: Hello! I need to write business justification for Oracle db server
: being installed in our company. We have issue with many small Access,
: Excell spreadsheet data storages, and need to have reliable and up to
: date database of inventory. We also hope to have web front end access
: for users to view and modify that data.
: I vote for Oracle, but will need to write down business justification
: for it before proceeding with using server and installing Oracle.

: Can somebody throw good ideas on how and what to put in business
: justification for this case, maybe example of already written
: justification?


Excel in particular is a very useful tool for non-technies.

Oracle doesn't magically make things better. In particular it doesn't
magically provide you with an up to date inventory, or automatically back
itself up, or generate web sites out of thin air.

Perhaps you need to invest in a prepackaged inventory system.


$0.04

--

This space not for rent.

[b***@gmail.com]

I'm sure that some salesperson can assist you with your questions. Pick
an app and don't worry about the backend.

-bdbafh

[Giovanni Azua]

Hello,

Also beware of large additional expenses around the decision like finding
justification for hiring expensive DBAs or as alternative signing very
more expensive SLAs ... do you have Oracle trained staff?

You will almost for sure incurr in large more additional expenses if
you find yourself requiring (probably new staff will ask for it
immediately):

- Database ER design tool that integrates with Oracle e.g. QDesigner.
- Database Management tool e.g. Quest TOAD (I can not live without it).
- Database third party tuning tools e.g. Quest Central or TOAD Tuning Xpert.

Would you be able to tell what Oracle can do for you that
other free Database Server can not do e.g. MySQL?

Possible answers are (just to mention a few):

- Need for large set of extensions to ANSI SQL (e.g. Analytic Functions)
- Full-fledged database programming language PL/SQL.
- Parallelism, queueing, etc.
- Oracle Web development with Forms PL/SQL.
- Oracle TEXT.
- Function-based indexes.
- Tables Partitioning.

I think of Oracle like buying a Ferrari, is a hell of a product, but you
have to pay extremelly expensive services and you should not care
about how much will cost changing a broken mirror.

Regards,
Giovanni

Post by database_prof
Hello! I need to write business justification for Oracle db server
being installed in our company. We have issue with many small Access,
Excell spreadsheet data storages, and need to have reliable and up to
date database of inventory. We also hope to have web front end access
for users to view and modify that data.
I vote for Oracle, but will need to write down business justification
for it before proceeding with using server and installing Oracle.
Can somebody throw good ideas on how and what to put in business
justification for this case, maybe example of already written
justification?

[Phil]

If you do go down the Oracle route then Access and Excel can be ported
very, very easily to Oracle HTML DB. If you need a demo, please send me
a couple of spreadsheets and I can help which could influence the
decision process.

Phil

[Mahesh Rajendran]

Post by Giovanni Azua
- Database ER design tool that integrates with Oracle e.g. QDesigner.
- Database Management tool e.g. Quest TOAD (I can not live without it).
- Database third party tuning tools e.g. Quest Central or TOAD Tuning Xpert.

Are we talking about end users here?
would you give any of above tools to END USERS?
I thought these are for techies!.

[Mahesh Rajendran]

Post by Giovanni Azua
- Database Management tool e.g. Quest TOAD (I can not live without it).
- Database third party tuning tools e.g. Quest Central or TOAD Tuning Xpert.

Never used any of these.
what is wrong with sql*plus for command line and OEM for all other GUI
related thingies, sqltrace / statspack for all performance tuning
analysis?
You no need to spend a penny more!
.

[p***@yahoo.co.uk]

Would you really expect end users to access the application using
SQL*Plus? Why not just give them an old mainframe system and terminal!

[Mahesh Rajendran]

Post by Giovanni Azua
- Database ER design tool that integrates with Oracle e.g. QDesigner.
- Database Management tool e.g. Quest TOAD (I can not live without it).
- Database third party tuning tools e.g. Quest Central or TOAD Tuning

Xpert

.

Are we talking about end users here?
would you give any of above tools to END USERS?
I thought these are for techies!

[Phil]

Techies set up HTML DB and then end users access the "app" section. The
big deal with this tool is that it comes with 10g and is free (once
you've got 10g that is).

Someone, please send me a spreadsheet & I'll invest the 10 minutes
(max) in porting it to HTML DB for you....

***@hotmail.com

[Paul]

Post by database_prof
Hello! I need to write business justification for Oracle db server
being installed in our company. We have issue with many small Access,
Excell spreadsheet data storages, and need to have reliable and up to
date database of inventory. We also hope to have web front end access
for users to view and modify that data.
I vote for Oracle, but will need to write down business justification
for it before proceeding with using server and installing Oracle.

Sounds like you need an ERM/CRM type system - there are literally
hundreds of them out there - you might be better advised to go down
that route, rather than asking about what db will I use and then what
language will I use to update and change the data. Thousands of
programmers have sweated into the night trying to solve these issues.

Post by database_prof
Can somebody throw good ideas on how and what to put in business
justification for this case, maybe example of already written
justification?

You shouldn't be asking about the db itself, but rather about systems.
If the one you pick uses Oracle, then well and good. However,
depending on your volumes of business and number of transactions,
Oracle may be overkill. It is a "beast" of a system, requiring a dba
and arcane mastery of all manner of database subtlities.

See what the vendors of ERM/CRM systems say to you about their own db
implementation. They may have a vested interest in your picking Oracle
(they can get more money - a small percentage of an expensive system
is worth more than a small percentage of a cheap one).

Post what the vendors say in comp.databases and ask what do other
posters think. As for this question, it belongs in
comp.databases.oracle.misc and I have set the followups.

It is generally considered rude to post the same question to multiple
groups (cross-posting) - pick the most appropriate one and stick to
it.


Paul...
--
plinehan __at__ yahoo __dot__ __com__

XP Pro, SP 2,

Oracle, 9.2.0.1.0 (Enterprise Ed.)
Interbase 6.0.2.0;

When asking database related questions, please give other posters
some clues, like operating system, version of db being used and DDL.
The exact text and/or number of error messages is useful (!= "it didn't work!").
Thanks.

Furthermore, As a courtesy to those who spend
time analyzing and attempting to help, please
do not top post.

[DA Morgan]

Post by database_prof
Hello! I need to write business justification for Oracle db server
being installed in our company. We have issue with many small Access,
Excell spreadsheet data storages, and need to have reliable and up to
date database of inventory. We also hope to have web front end access
for users to view and modify that data.
I vote for Oracle, but will need to write down business justification
for it before proceeding with using server and installing Oracle.
Can somebody throw good ideas on how and what to put in business
justification for this case, maybe example of already written
justification?

It would help to have a lot more information than you have provided but
the internal sale needs to rest on more than one foundation. Lets deal
with the most important one first: The law.

Assuming your organization is subject to US laws you likely fall under
the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, or similar. Assuming Sarbanes
Oxley, quite frankly, use of MS Access and/or Excel is close to
equivalent to breaking the law and puts your c-level managment at risk.
Simply put Sarbanes-Oxley requires that all numbers used to make and
report financial decisions be auditable. It is absolutely impossible to
audit either MS Access or Excel. There is not ability to track,
cell-by-cell or field-by-field the origins and history of all changes.
By consolidating these non-auditable tools (well toys really) into
Oracle you get Fine Grained Access Control, Fine Grained Auditing, etc.
all of which provide the ability to backup, audit, and control access to
information as required by the law.

The second justification is technical. There are things that can be done
in Oracle that are impossible to do in either Access or Excel. And to
that can be added scalability and performance. But to make these
arguments requires knowing a lot about what is being done and what it is
that should be done so I can not help you with them here.

HTH

[Galen Boyer]

Post by DA Morgan
Assuming your organization is subject to US laws you likely fall under
the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, or similar. Assuming
Sarbanes Oxley, quite frankly, use of MS Access and/or Excel is close
to equivalent to breaking the law and puts your c-level managment at
risk. Simply put Sarbanes-Oxley requires that all numbers used to
make and report financial decisions be auditable. It is absolutely
impossible to audit either MS Access or Excel.

Hey Daniel,

My company's IT department just got slammed by Sarbanes-Oxley. In our
new Oracle frontier (I'm the architect of the datawarehouse and ODS) we
have a first release that includes Microsoft Access used to do some user
updates to our Oracle backend. I'm authoring all of the user_auditing
inclusive of Fine-Grained auditing. In subsequent releases we plan on
replacing Microsoft Access with a web front-end.

Do you know of any Sarbanes-Oxley that we are violating with just using
Access as a user front-end?

[DA Morgan]

Post by Galen Boyer

Post by DA Morgan
Assuming your organization is subject to US laws you likely fall under
the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, or similar. Assuming
Sarbanes Oxley, quite frankly, use of MS Access and/or Excel is close
to equivalent to breaking the law and puts your c-level managment at
risk. Simply put Sarbanes-Oxley requires that all numbers used to
make and report financial decisions be auditable. It is absolutely
impossible to audit either MS Access or Excel.

Hey Daniel,
My company's IT department just got slammed by Sarbanes-Oxley. In our
new Oracle frontier (I'm the architect of the datawarehouse and ODS) we
have a first release that includes Microsoft Access used to do some user
updates to our Oracle backend. I'm authoring all of the user_auditing
inclusive of Fine-Grained auditing. In subsequent releases we plan on
replacing Microsoft Access with a web front-end.
Do you know of any Sarbanes-Oxley that we are violating with just using
Access as a user front-end?

Not by virtue of MS Access as a front-end tool because Oracle provides
your security and auditing. The one thing some consultancies are
advising though is that you very carefully manage versioning of the
front-end. In other words it should be impossible for someone to alter
the front-end tool without that alteration being audited.