A breather for SAP users


The DOAG Conference and Exhibition kicked off with a wide-ranging program.
"With around 450 presentations in 20 parallel tracks, numerous community meetings, workshops and unconference sessions, and an exhibition with more than 60 booths, the conference offers the ideal platform for knowledge exchange and network expansion over four days"
says DOAG Chairman Dietmar Neugebauer. No matter if database administrator, developer or manager - they all used the conference to network and exchange with other participants.
There was good news for SAP users: As Oracle announced in the run-up to the conference, "Extended Support at no additional cost" for the Oracle database 11gR2 has been extended until May 2017 and thus extended by 16 months.
For many, this initially means a sigh of relief, as the postponement provides more time for migration, especially since not all features of version 12c of the database have yet been released.
This includes in particular the still missing release of the multitenant option by SAP, i.e. the possibility of using "pluggable databases".
"Many companies will probably wait until SAP releases pluggable databases before migrating from 11g to 12c. The effort of rebuilding and testing the infrastructure required for operation is considerable with regard to Multitenant".
Jörg Hildebrandt, DOAG Topic Manager Oracle & SAP, assesses the situation.
"This is also the reason why SAP now wants to release this option at the end of the first half of 2016 after all."
Licensing news
An important topic at the conference: the licensing issue. Ever new regulations regarding the licensing of Oracle software in virtual environments as well as the release of Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 had greatly unsettled customers.
Reason enough for Oracle's Country Leader in Germany, Frank Obermeier, to make the licensing issue the topic of his keynote. During a discussion of the DOAG as well as the Swiss and Austrian Oracle user groups with Andrew Mendelsohn, Executive Vice President at Oracle, hopeful progress in the area of licensing in VM environments could also be noted.