As the industry consolidates and standardizes, we as vendors are getting far more comfortable in the new world of co-opetion with other vendors: a nuanced world where we cooperate in some areas, and compete with others.
No longer can various inter-vendor relationships be easily and exclusively categorized as either "friend" or "foe" -- the answer is usually mix of both, with customers giving as strong input on where we need to cooperate, and where they'll encourage a little friendly competition.
Many of the customers I work with are getting more comfortable in this new landscape as well. They're learning to look beyond the press releases and brochures to figure out how well various vendors are working together -- or not -- as the case might be.
And I think the relationship between EMC and Oracle is an excellent case study in how these dynamics can result in better outcomes for everyone: customers *and* vendors.
A Bit Of Context
It's not really up for debate -- Oracle's database is a standard fixture in just about every IT environment I encounter. They're an indelible part of the landscape, and will be for the forseeable future.
Similarly, EMC (and VMware) are also growing part of the landscape as well for many IT environments. Hopefully, we can continue to earn a growing role in IT environments large and small.
Way back when, it was pretty simple: Oracle did big honking databases, and EMC provided the big honking storage and disaster-recovery infrastructure people needed. A natural synergy evolved.
Indeed, at the end of the 1990s, EMC and Oracle were being used so frequently together (including Cisco) that we created a set of popular industry blueprints for the new wave of "internet datacenters" dubbed the ECOstructure.
If you're interested, check out this decade-old press release from Cisco's web site :-)
Things Change
Over the last decade, EMC has dramatically expanded our portfolio. We diversified into virtualization, content management and -- most recently -- data warehousing and business analytics.
Oracle has diversified as well. Among other things, they've made plays for virtualization, content management, data warehousing and BI -- as well as acquiring Sun, which brings storage and related technologies into the mix.
Both companies have aspirations to be bigger and more relevant over time. Both companies have strong personalities at the helm. Neither company is in the habit of backing down from their core strategies and investments just because there's a little conflict in the mix.
Indeed, the potential for open conflict would be a real and present possibility if it wasn't for one simple fact: we both serve some of the most demanding IT organizations on the planet, and we all know who's in charge :-)
Customers Decide, Not Vendors
With regards to EMC and Oracle, I'm seeing a particular scenario play out repeatedly.
One or the other company starts to invest in an area that the other doesn't completely appreciate. It's a little bit tense for a while, and then we all realize that customers like more choices, and they really like their vendors to work together.
An early example was remote replication. EMC was doing all sorts of remote replication, and Oracle started adding the capability to their database. Turns out that there were some cases where Oracle's approach was better, and some where EMC's was better. We supported Oracle's approach, and they supported EMC's approach.
Customers won as a result.
A more recent example has been the tussle of running production Oracle instances under VMware. Just about everyone wants to do this for all the right reasons. Oracle's original negative stance has unofficially softened over time, and now it's pretty routine to have customers running production Oracle databases under VMware -- and getting the support they need.
EMC's recent acquisition of Greenplum for on-demand business analytics might be seen as a competitive threat by some; in actuality, Greenplum's technology fills a gap that's hard for other products to fill -- and many customers end up using both Oracle and Greenplum products together.
EMC's Perspective
We've always felt it was important to invest in supporting the technologies our customers were using, regardless of other investments in the EMC portfolio. As just one example, most people aren't aware that we've invested heavily in creating some advanced capabilities around Microsoft's Hyper-V as well as the various Xen hypervisors -- in addition to all the investment we make in VMware's ecosystem.
Our relationship with Oracle is no different. EMC continues to invest inordinate sums in Oracle-specific product enhancements, solution testing, professional services and customer support. If you're running Oracle products, we want to be your preferred infrastructure solution provider -- period!
Indeed, as Oracle starts to focus their new infrastructure assets at their installed base (think Sun and Exadata), we'll need to invest even more to create additional and substantive differentiation between what Oracle is doing -- and what EMC is doing.
And Some Recent Examples ...
Going in to Oracle OpenWorld, we've just announced a recent slew of new capabilities that target this important part of the IT landscape.
One is the new "Rapid Deployment and Scale Out for Oracle E-Business Suite Enabled by EMC RecoverPoint, EMC Replication Manager, and VMware vSphere™" solution that can create, for example, ten full functional virtual machines in ten minutes -- and keep them updated.
(yes, we've been trying to get the team to consider shorter names, but obviously we've been unsuccessful so far ...)
It should be pointed out that this solution works well on both EMC and non-EMC storage (although we'll always make a case for EMC's kit!), and can -- through the use of RecoverPoint -- do its magic over extended distances if needed.
There's also the new "EMC FAST® Cache with Oracle OLTP Database Applications" solution brief that evidences what we've known for a while -- a little flash cache can make a HUGE difference in database performance.
Once the working set for any database ends up in enterprise flash drives, performance jumps into turbo mode. And, since most DBMS working sets are quite modest, we're not talking an inordinate amount of $$$. For most customers, it's probably the most cost-effective (and risk-free) method of getting a big bump in end-user performance.
There's also a great whitepaper on how EMC's IT group moved their current on-demand Oracle BI environment to VMAX and FAST -- and got both huge cost savings and dramatic performance increases.
On a more pragmatic note, there's now a great white paper on how to use the newer Symmetrix VP (virtual provisioning) capabilities with production 10g and 11g database -- making the resulting storage environment far simpler to provision and manage, in addition to being both more space-efficent and delivering higher performance.
If your interest is using storage more efficiently in your Oracle environment, you'll want to read this white paper showing how the new sub-LUN FAST features can reduce storage costs by ~15% -- while delivering better overall performance.
And, let's not forget backup -- this document details how Data Domain can be used to protect a product Oracle 11g OLTP environment, and delivering faster backups and restores, as well as dramatically reducing associated costs.
Products, Solutions .. And Expertise
EMC Consulting tends to invest in the specific areas expertise our customers need, and Oracle-related skills are no exception.
From underlying architectural design to implementation to project management to business-level consulting services -- we've amassed quite a portfolio of very focused skills to complement existing ones within the IT organization.
Much of this expertise isn't tied to specific EMC products and technologies -- sure, we'll make an argument that EMC products do a better job -- but the capabilities and outcomes can be delivered largely independent of which vendor is on the floor.
Stepping Back
We think our customers are on a journey -- from virtualization to private clouds that deliver IT as a service. Taking their investment in Oracle forward is a key part of that journey, and we continue to invest to make it an integral part of the next-generation landscape.
So, can we talk to you about your Oracle environment?
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