Oracle Migrations: 10 reasons why organisations move away from Oracle in 2024

Oracle Migrations: 10 reason why organisations move away from Oracle in 2024

In 2024, the tech landscape is witnessing a surge in migration projects, particularly among companies moving away from Oracle. This trend is driven by a multitude of factors, from the need for greater innovation and agility to the desire for cost efficiency and improved security. This blog article will explore the reasons behind the increasing popularity of migration projects and how organizations like RENAPS, with their ORMIT™ product suite, are facilitating these transitions.

1. Legacy Technologies Hindering Innovation

One of the primary reasons companies are moving away from Oracle is the limitation imposed by legacy technologies. As Oracle Forms initial concept is turning 45 years old in 2024, we can surely say that these technologies have outlived their time. These outdated systems often lack the flexibility and scalability required to support modern business needs. As a result, organizations are turning to newer, more agile solutions that enable faster innovation and adaptability in a rapidly changing market.

2. Standardization and Consolidation

Organizations are increasingly seeking to streamline their operations by standardizing and consolidating their technology platforms. This approach enhances security, reliability, and support while reducing costs. Regularly evaluating the technology stack helps businesses avoid outdated and potentially unsafe technologies, ensuring they can respond effectively to market pressures.

3. Rising Licensing Costs

Oracle's licensing costs have been steadily increasing, and the complexity of their licensing agreements often leaves customers paying more than anticipated. This financial strain prompts businesses to seek more affordable alternatives. The cost-benefit analysis frequently reveals that migrating away from Oracle can be economically advantageous over the long term.

Oracle has also long been known for locking in customers through complex and often onerous contractual terms. One particularly controversial practice is Oracle's ability to "reprice" contracts, which can result in unexpected and significant costs for customers. Imagine a scenario where an Oracle customer significantly reduces their usage of Oracle database licenses. For instance, a company might decrease its usage from 1000 licenses to 100 licenses. Naturally, you would expect that a 90% reduction in usage would translate to a corresponding 90% reduction in Oracle support costs. However, the reality can be quite different. Due to the terms and conditions embedded in Oracle's contracts, the company retains the right to reprice the cost of the remaining licenses. This means that even though the customer has drastically reduced their usage, Oracle can adjust the pricing structure so that the cost for the remaining 100 licenses remains close to or even the same as what the customer was paying for 1000 licenses. This practice undermines the financial benefits that customers would expect from reducing their Oracle footprint. To navigate these challenges, businesses need to be vigilant about the terms and conditions of their Oracle contracts. Engaging with legal and procurement teams to thoroughly review and negotiate contract terms before signing can provide some protection against unexpected repricing. Additionally, companies might consider seeking advice from third-party consultants such as RENAPS who specialize in Oracle licensing and contract management. Furthermore, exploring alternative database solutions and gradually migrating away from Oracle has become a very popular strategic move. Modern, open-source databases often provide the flexibility and cost savings that businesses are looking for, without the hidden costs associated with repricing.

4. Frequent and Painful Audits

Oracle is notorious for its rigorous and frequent audits, which often result in hefty fines and compliance challenges for customers. Oracle leverages license audits conducted by their LMS team to compel reluctant customers into purchasing their cloud services. Need proof? Look no further than what occurred with the City of Denver. Oracle views their cloud offerings as a powerful mechanism for ensuring customer dependence. By controlling contracts, hardware, software, implementation, and data, Oracle effectively creates a scenario where customers find it exceedingly difficult to transition away from their ecosystem. This represents a significant strategic advantage for Oracle.These audits and business practices create a climate of uncertainty and frustration, pushing companies to seek less intrusive and more predictable solutions.

5. Influence of Major Brands

High-profile companies like Amazon have publicly moved away from Oracle, setting a precedent that influences other businesses to reconsider their dependency on Oracle products. Moreover, according to Amazon, doing so helped improve their cost, performance and administrative overhead. For example, Amazon has reduced their database costs by over 60% on top of the heavily discounted rate they already had based on their scale. Customers frequently report savings of 90% when switching from Oracle to AWS. Furthermore, performance improvements as latency of consumer-facing applications was reduced by 40% and administrative tasks such as database admin overhead was reduced by 70% by switching to managed services. Seeing industry leaders transition to alternative solutions with such success reinforces the perception that Oracle products are no longer be essential.

6. Fear of Deprecation

The fear of deprecation and end-of-support for Oracle technologies, such as Oracle Forms, drives organizations to migrate to more sustainable solutions. The high costs associated with extended support make migration a more attractive option, especially when modern alternatives offer similar functionality without the hefty price tag. When Oracle support ends, many organizations face extended support costs that increase by 10% on their existing support fee in the first year and an additional 20% in the second and third years. This alone can be a strong incentive to move away from Oracle, especially since most open-source and newer products can perform between 90% to 99% of what Oracle products do. Most organizations do not use any Oracle features that necessitate Oracle products. Like many suppliers—and certainly not less than others—Oracle has eagerly introduced new products while discontinuing existing ones, sometimes after a surprisingly short lifespan, and without always providing clear migration paths for existing customers. Oracle product teams often operate within their own context, with little coordination and responsibility for the history built with and by customers.

7. Efficiency and Availability

Modern technologies are designed to distribute load more evenly, reducing server infrastructure costs and improving overall system efficiency and availability. Oracle's older products often require significant resources and optimization, making them less efficient compared to contemporary alternatives.

8. Moving to the Cloud

As organizations define their cloud strategies, many are choosing solutions that do not include Oracle. The cloud migration trend is a key factor prompting businesses to reassess their technology stacks and move towards more cloud-friendly options.

9. Evolving Technology Culture

Within organizations, there is a growing recognition of the need to stay current with technology trends. Technical staff often prefer modern, open-source technologies that offer greater flexibility and community support. Meanwhile, managerial staff are more concerned with reducing costs and improving ROI. This cultural shift is leading many companies to phase out Oracle in favor of more modern and cost-effective solutions.

10. Talent shortage

There is a dwindling supply of new Oracle Forms talent in the market. As the community of Oracle Forms developers gradually diminishes, with no fresh talent emerging, the technology itself, now 45 years old, faces a significant challenge. Many of the existing Oracle Forms experts are approaching retirement, which poses a considerable risk to the long-term maintenance of this technology.