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Oracle Feels Heat, Tries to Redefine Kitchen

I know when there is trouble on the off ramp that once ran directly to Sea World south of San Francisco. There is the deterioration of the road bed, a reminder of the problems aging infrastructure pose to drivers. In a way, cracked pavement and poorly marked off ramps are indicative of some enterprise technology solutions as well. You make a choice, expecting a smooth ride to Sea World, and what do you get? A jarring ride down a highway filled with bumps and pot holes. Why no improvements? Good question. I asked this when I was doing one of my periodic brush ups for the companies I track in the search, information management, and content processing sector that is my particular interest.

My research suggests that the giant database vendor Oracle faces a number of challenges. The company’s headquarters can be reached on the old Sea World highway, now named Oracle Way, I think.

First, the company cannot land its corporate jet or its founder’s jet fighter at the same airport as Google. Googlers can walk to their expensive toys. Oracle executives have to fight traffic on 101. Second, there are growing problems from data management upstarts like InfoBright and Aster Data. Third, there are the pesky French search based application vendors like Exalead. Fourth, the geriatric Codd database is getting left in the performance dust by the speedy Perfect Search vortex technology. Fifth, the Oracle Secure Enterprise Search remains an undercard opponent in the enterprise search wrestling matches that entertain me on a daily basis.

But Oracle asserts that it has not only addressed some of its weaknesses but the company has taken a leadership position in next generation data management.

For example, in November 2009, I read an interesting Oracle blog post called “Next Generation Data Warehouse Platforms”. The post made a number of assertions that suggested Oracle had overcome the problems of scaling, performance, and affordability that continue to plague the world’s largest database vendor. For example, that blog post pointed out these breakthroughs for Oracle 11 and I quote from the Oracle blog:

• “Performance => Sun Oracle Database Machine. Yes, it really is fast!
• In-memory processing => Oracle now has (11gR2) In-Memory Parallel Execution. More about this can be read in Maria’s excellent post here.
• In-Database Analytics => As the report says in Exadata V2 and Oracle 11gR2 we are now offloading data mining model scoring to the storage side of the house, which allows us to embed mining models into more and more operational systems and get online (direct) feedback on transactions. We also have for years moved more and more OLAP and Stats functionality into the engine
• Real-time data warehousing => First and foremost the read consistency model introduced in Oracle 4 (this is not a typo…) allowing readers to see consistent data during writes, secondly, the just completed acquisition of Golden Gate and the ETL capabilities (like streams) in Oracle allow for very nice real time data feeds. Oracle’s MAA architecture allows us to be up and running 24*7 on commodity hardware and deliver an online experience to all customers…
• Cloud computing => see the in-database MapReduce post here.
• Appliances => Sun Oracle Database Machine.”

If these statements are spot on, Oracle has cracked some technical and business challenges it has faced for many years. From Oracle’s position of strength, Oracle can crush its rivals by winning head to head competitions. Strength is manifested in client wins and revenues in my book. White papers nuking another tech vendor are not demonstrations of strength in my opinion.

Apparently companies in a position of strength find it appropriate to use rhetoric and disinformation to discipline an upstart. Let me give you an example.

I stumbled upon an Oracle white paper “Mark Logic XML Server 4.1”. You must download your own copy from this link. This paper which shows a November 2009 date here is a fascinating window into Oracle. If I were teaching rhetoric, I would use this Oracle white paper as an example of disinformation. Your mileage may vary.

I asked myself, “Why would a multi-billion dollar outfit invest the time, money, and effort in a direct attack on a specialist company chugging quietly along, pretty much minding its own business?” The Oracle white paper purports to discuss technology of a company that “continues to rely on venture funding”. The white paper explores five alleged weaknesses of the Mark Logic XML Server 4.1. The implications of the Oracle analysis range from cost to complexity to proprietary technology to financial weakness. Mark Logic, according to the white paper “Mark Logic XML Server 4.1” essentially cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.

My own experience with the Mark Logic technology is that Mark Logic can walk, chew gum, and compete in data gymnastics. Keep in mind that I have been fed cold tacos and compensated with a Mark Logic goodie bag at a recent Mark Logic meet up in Washington, DC.

I sat in the crowded meeting room with 225 other people and listened to my former colleagues at Booz, Allen & Hamilton explain their use of the Mark Logic technology. I trust blue chip consultants because the risk of screw ups is too great to deploy a solution that makes a very large client unhappy. I heard speakers representing the US government explain their use of the Mark Logic technology in war fighting, pointing out the benefits of Mark Logic technology in war fighting. I heard whiz kids explain that slicing and dicing information permitted clever mash ups of data without humans fiddling to deliver on the fly, low latency solutions for decision makers. The assertions and evidence in the Oracle anti-Mark Logic white paper were not in line with what I learned directly from Mark Logic users.

This begs the question, “So what’s with the direct attack on Mark Logic?” In my opinion, there are three factors operating:

First, Oracle finds itself in a position of playing catch up in next generation data management. For whatever reason, the Oracle sales engineers have found that organizations in a number of business sectors want a non Oracle solution.

Second, customers are struggling with a mushy economy. The notion of paying more money for Oracle licenses, more money for Oracle service, and more money for more hardware to get acceptable performance continues to lose appeal. Like SAP, Oracle finds itself facing customer resistance to the traditional enterprise software approach. Cost alone is not the only deal breaker. The perceived benefits of an Oracle RDBMS are losing magnetism.

Third, the petascale flows of data in some organizations are forcing a fundamental rethink of traditional data management and repurposing approaches in use since the late 1970s. Last generation technology is not appropriate for next generation data management problems. Not even the entrenched Oracle database administrator can get an aging RDBMS elephant to do the tricks it could in the good old days. A different data animal is needed in my opinion.

I suggest that you read the Oracle write ups yourself and draw your own conclusions. The analysis of Mark Logic underscores Oracle’s own technical Werner’s syndrome.

Stephen Arnold, December 4,  2009

Oyez, oyez, I wish to disclose to the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service that I have been fed tacos and given a goodie bag by Mark Logic’s official chief technology officer. He was nervous around the addled goose, and he watched where he stepped after I waddled away. Prudence is a positive.

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