Greater London Authority IT chief feels 'liberated' after Oracle migration
GLA is now making greater use of open source tools in a bid to boost flexibility and save money
The Greater London Authority (GLA) is nearly Oracle-free in a move that has made its IT chief feel "liberated". Instead, the organisation is expanding its use of open source tools and technologies, which it says delivers greater flexibility and cuts costs.
GLA head of information technology David Munn told Computing that the firm had now moved to a position where it had only a small number of Oracle software instances left at the organisation.
"So we're not completely Oracle-free but I think it's fair to say we have no large-scale systems that are Oracle-based, so obviously this has saved us money but it's not just about that, it's about the flexibility you get when you work with open source tools; you don't have to constantly go back and check what licensing allows you to do," he said.
Munn explained that the GLA started using virtualisation back in 2007, but had to keep referring back to what the Oracle licensing agreement allowed the organisation to do.
"I feel liberated that we're mostly reliant on open source now," Munn said.
CIOs have frequently told Computing of the frustration they feel when dealing with Oracle, as well as the likes of IBM and SAP, because of their software licensing practices.
Indeed, confectionery firm Mars wanted to sue Oracle last year because of a dispute over how it ran Oracle on VMware's vSphere hypervisor.
Pavitt suggested that the vendor's tactics wouldn't change because many organisations are so reliant on its technology, and felt they had their hands tied.
GLA's Munn said that he had a great deal of sympathy for the issues Pavitt ran into.
"I shared some of his pain, and I suppose that's one of the reasons why we're doing what we're doing," he said.
Meanwhile, Pavitt suggested that end user organisations "can't do without Oracle", but Munn said he believed it was important for CIOs to not regard it as too difficult to make drastic changes, and even move away from the likes of Oracle.
"It can be painful, and it has been for us, and it can take a long time but people should expect CIOs, particularly in an age of austerity, to make tough choices and move away from those things," he said.
He acknowledged that in the case of Pavitt, or indeed other CIOs, the business requirements may not allow them to move away from Oracle, IBM or SAP.