OpSource Adds Oracle Database, App Server to Cloud Options on Monthly Basis 
Managed service provider OpSource Inc. is in a game-changing partnership with Oracle Corp. to provide customers monthly access to Oracle’s database and Oracle Fusion Middleware’s WebLogic Server. These monthly options, which let customers avoid the need to commit to a perpetual license, apply to both testing and live deployments, OpSource execs said.
Managed service provider OpSource Inc. is in a unique partnership with Oracle Corp. to provide SaaS providers and enterprise IT monthly access to Oracle’s database and Oracle Fusion Middleware’s WebLogic Server.
The per-month access to Oracle software components enable customers to avoid the need to commit to a perpetual license. Per-month licenses for Oracle’s database and app server are available for both testing and live deployments.
OpSource’s ability to offer these key Oracle components as part of its menu of managed infrastructure services may prove a game-changer for many working on SaaS, cloud apps and services, OpSource senior vice president Keao Caindec told IDN.
“Our ability to offer Oracle on a monthly basis is strongly business focused, not just technology focused,” Caindec said. “Many prospective customers come to us with a great new idea for a new SaaS or cloud service. But they still need to build, test and sell it to the marketplace, so they need to keep costs down.”
Costs for perpetual licenses to use an Oracle database or app sever can run $30,000 or more, even for a small test deployment that might last only a few months, Caindec said. “Facing those kind of overhead costs, companies would either need to go back to the drawing board, use open source [components] or other lower-cost options,” he said.
OpSource’s ability to provide customers monthly access to Oracle database and app server components drives two types of benefits across the SaaS lifecycle, Caindec said. “For start-up companies, or those just moving to the cloud, it’s a proof-of-concept solution that lets them better afford to test and execute on their unproven innovative ideas,” Caindec told IDN. “And, for established ISVs, it lets them meet demands from their larger enterprise customers to provide cloud services that run with Oracle components.”
“Technically, what they all have in common is the fact that typically most of these applications and SaaS offerings reach out to a database and other types of software components,” he said. “So, we felt adding software to the OpSource cloud offerings was a big way to help clients.”
Keao Caindec
Senior Vice President, OpSource
Another technical and business advantage of monthly access to Oracle components is that it lets OpSource offer customers a seamless migration from dev-test to live deployment. After the testing is successful, OpSource can help SaaS providers easily move their SaaS apps to live deployment, where they pay monthly access plus usage. OpSource can also provide hosting, management, performance optimization and easy scalability to those live apps, Caindec added.
One of OpSource’s SaaS customers already reports benefits to his business and customers. “Delivering a business-critical SaaS solution for enterprise product planning requires that we respond to customer issues quickly and accurately,” said Mark Pecoraro, Sr. Vice President of SaaS Operations at Accept Software, in a statement. “OpSource has already enabled Accept to meet our customers’ needs while reducing our SaaS operating costs by 40 percent. The option to license Oracle on a monthly basis will help us even further improve the bottom line.”
Inside the Game-Changing OpSource-Oracle Cloud Options
OpSource hit upon the idea of bringing temporary licensing for key Oracle components last year, as it noted behaviors from its ISV, SaaS and enterprise IT managed services customers. OpSource noticed Oracle’s costly “perpetual license” structure for its database and app server components (even for testing) was putting a drag on innovation. Or, it was requiring companies to use non-commercial open source components to test their new SaaS or cloud services.
“Until now, the cloud could only provide on-demand access to infrastructure network, storage and compute power. For the most part, software [components] remained a perpetual license business,” Caindec told IDN.
But that reality was crimping ways to expand cloud revenues, for OpSource and for partners. “Many of our customers were asking us how we might help them test new applications before they launch them, so we went exploring for a solution and that’s where the idea of bringing Oracle components into our infrastructure started,” Caindec said. “Adding the right Oracle components into OpSource, we felt, could let us dramatically reduce customer costs for testing.”
Technology-wise, the idea made a lot of sense to the OpSource team. “Just like cloud servers or cloud files are configured and controlled in cloud environment, we saw that adding key software components to that cloud infrastructure is just the natural next step,” Caindec said.
Beyond the technical dimension, OpSource also faced a political hurdle, and needed to convince Oracle that adding Oracle components to its cloud-based infrastructure menu at a monthly fee (not a perpetual license) would be good for both OpSource and Oracle – and not erode or cannibalize any Oracle revenue streams.
OpSource leveraged its standing as a gold member in the Oracle PartnerNetwork to start talks with Oracle about designing a new OpSource service based on Oracle components. The meeting wasn’t just a simple chat to negotiate terms of use, Caindec said. The program had to be developed from scratch.
“When we first began, it wasn’t obvious at all how we and Oracle could work together to get this to happen,” Caindec said. “But over nine months, we worked it all through, and ended up with a new program designed from scratch that would work for each of us and for customers.”
The guiding principal of the program was simple, he added. “This strategy was all about helping SaaS and cloud services developers more easily use Oracle databases and app servers to test their offerings, instead of having to use MySQL or other open source [middleware or database] components,” Caindec said.
“A year from now, we’re going to look back and be stunned that software [components] like these from Oracle [weren’t] sold like this a lot sooner,” Caindec told IDN. “Our customer reaction has been very positive, and we see lots more success coming from this extension to OpSource’s offerings.”
