Aerospace Manufacturer and Services
After a brief consulting assignment, RDB Concepts were asked to provide 24×7, full resolving services covering the legacy operating system, database and application servers. Over a number of years the client has asked for advice on a number of changes and improvements to DR arrangements and various patching and upgrade issues. All of which are covered under the standard RDB Manage SLA.
Improving Oracle Performance
RDB Concepts were commissioned to investigate poor performance from an Oracle Enterprise RAC application which is used to provide a subscription business service internationally.
On further investigation, there were a number of problems with the installation and configuration of the database; together with a sprawling DevOps environment. The infrastructure was struggling and the performance was a fraction of what could be achieved given the costs and investments.
International near-SaaS provision for UK based ISV
An existing customer called us in to investigate a complex problem with a Linux Postgres Cluster. The application running on the machines was sporadically losing nodes and then not able to recover even with manual intervention. The customer who is based in the Middle East was using the application for a very high profile organisation with large numbers of international users.
On further investigation, there were a number of problems with the installation and configuration of the cluster. Once we had established all of the relevant problems we were able to reconfigure the cluster to make the maximum us of the feature of Postgres and Linux to achieve very stable running.
Large National Restaurant Chain
RDB Concepts have supported this major high-street name with our RDB Manage and Custodian*24 services for more than 10 years. We have undertaken several estate optimisation projects for them. Most recently as part of our contribution to their COVID– 19 cost cutting programs we suggested a significant optimisation which saved them a staggering 90% on their Oracle DB licence OpEx costs annually.
The database optimisation was combined with a wholesale change of suppliers in their hosting and networks. By making clever use of their IBM Power8 Servers to reduce licence costs for the Oracle DB Enterprise Edition running Micros/Oracle Hospitality.
We had incrementally reduced their Oracle DB EE costs over the preceding years from 32 CPUs to 12 CPUs and then finally to 8 CPUs. In the end we were able to migrate the whole application to Oracle DB SE and make a final saving of 90%.
Large International Restauranteur Troubleshooting Core System Support
A large multi-franchise, international restauranteur was experiencing very serious problems with its Oracle Hospitality system, which was their core management system worldwide. Despite being hosting by Oracle in the Oracle Cloud on an Oracle Enterprise RAC, the system performed terribly with P1 issues multiple times a week. As a decision support led business, this was both expensive and paralysing. Orders could not be placed, staff could not be scheduled and sales posting was delayed.
Another issue was that the Oracle Cloud Service for such a large operator was a very large deployment, and had seven figure costs per annum. Also, the Oracle Cloud service agreement did not have any service guarantees associated with the platform, only a Best Endeavours clause for the application layers.
There is a detailed case study of this project available. To download this resource please click here
Large Website and WebServices Stack
A government organisation providing a variety of national services via a website, needed assistance with maintaining patch levels on an application stack which was out of support and end of life. The infrastructure and architecture had also evolved over more than 10 years and had a large number of ageing components. There was a need to explore streamlining the architecture, and providing a high-availability cloud service to support it at a reduced cost.
Telecoms Infrastructure & Database Optimisation
RDB Concepts were commissioned to investigate the decommissioning of several legacy enterprise database servers which had become increasingly expensive to maintain. On further investigation, there was a broader problem of managing an ageing estate with large licence and maintenance obligations.
Legacy Migrations to Cloud
Many CIOs have a move to cloud for all or most systems, often in short timescales on their to-do list. However, some of the legacy core systems which run many mature businesses have either a technology debt or are too embedded to contemplate major moves before end-of-life/sunset provisions can be made. Often this kind of project is so enormous that it can take years to mature. Equally a "Lift and Shift" to the cloud usually has costs which, are disproportionate and/or inefficient.
RDB has a long track record of migrating and managing legacy and/or proprietary environments to secure, portable, modern platforms.