Company Profile

Product:     Certero for Oracle

                   Certero ELP & Optimization SAM Service

Industry:    Defense Engineering Services

Locations:  Global

Devices:     30,000+

The Challenge

As an existing Certero customer, the highly-secure organization already had Certero for Oracle deployed to their IT estate. With the inhouse skills and leading technology they felt confident that they had full control and visibility of their Oracle database estate but were less confident when it came to Oracle Middleware. They had identified a gap in their in-house expertise with Oracle Middleware and recognized that they needed additional support and expertise to get to an informed position of confidence.

Insufficient Visibility

The customer highlighted having particular headaches with deciphering where and how Oracle Middleware products were being used, as Middleware is notorious for being complex, difficult to detect and challenging to accurately identify. This is because there are a lot of moving parts with Oracle Middleware and some of those moving parts are common to many, many individual products.

Identifying Middleware commonly relied upon self-declaration and individual stakeholder knowledge. The lack of centralized visibility compounded the challenge on top of the businesses’ complex scale, their history of acquisitions and dealing with a suite of products that are already notoriously difficult to find and accurately identify amongst so many other Oracle products in use.

Third Party Products

Where the customer knew they had Middleware deployed, they knew that some of it was installed via 3rd parties. The challenge was deciphering what licensing went with each product, knowing what to ask the 3rd parties to understand whether it was themselves or the third party that were responsible for the license and whether they had a shortfall.

With this in-mind and also mindful that an audit letter could appear at any time, they required a partner who could help bring some clarity to the situation.

Therefore, the requirement undertaken by Certero’s SAM team using the Certero for Oracle solution, was to fully document and understand both the full use Middleware products and the 3rd party deployments.

The Solution

Certero’s Technology-Led Services approach, utilizes Certero’s uniquely advanced Software Asset Management technology to automate many of the complex data-driven tasks throughout SAM processes, enabling SAM consultant’s expertise to be focused more on the high-value tasks that deliver value to the business.

Giving them full visibility of the IT estate, the Certero’s SAM team worked through a systematic process to decipher the components for each middleware deployment and then match that to existing licensing, whilst analyzing all of the businesses’ related contractual information to gain a full and clear understanding.

The challenge then for Certero’s Oracle licensing specialists was one that the technology could not perform; knowing precisely what to ask the 3rd parties in order to understand the licensing that went with each product. This would help to determine if it was the responsibility of the 3rd party or the customer and what that might mean for future compliance.

Certero provided the customer with suggestions for assurances to obtain from 3rd parties, so that the liability in each case was clearly defined. Also, strategic recommendations were made to cover the gaps where licensing was missing, to correct and eliminate risk in the most optimal way for the customer.

This helped the customer to gain a clear understanding that wasn’t subjective to any one individual stakeholder and would prepare them and eliminate the risk of surprises when undergoing their next, inevitable Oracle audit.

The Results

• Full identification of Risk present with all Oracle Database, Middleware and E-Business Suite software deployed across the business
• Strategic, clear advice to correct and optimize Oracle licensing
• Knowledge transfer and creation of a documented, centralized understanding of Oracle, including Middleware
• Assurance of control and clearly defined and agreed boundaries between the customer and the 3rd party’s obligations with Oracle