What a crap article...
Detroit sh*t shifter's operating costs waste away with Oracle's cloud
The City of Detroit's Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) – more used to channeling waste away from civilisation – has squeezed out some fluff for Oracle by claiming its migration to Big Red's cloud saved it $1m. The shift to various flavours of Oracle clouds, which happened in May last year, is estimated to have saved the US …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 29th August 2018 16:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Jokes aside, the water is good
The "W" stands for "water", which DWSD gets from Lake Huron and delivers to not just Detroit proper but most of the suburbs (who purchase in bulk and run their own distribution-to-the-premises).
Based on annual water quality reports from my township's distribution -- township water HQ is only 3 miles up the road from my house -- DWSD's supply is actually quite fine, to which I agree based on smell, taste, color, et cetera.
(Way better than Flint River water... No wonder they begged to come back to DSWD. The sewage who forced it on Flint is filling up the state capitol in Lansing.)
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Thursday 30th August 2018 16:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Bat timing
[Note: same AC as before]
Blame the piping of Detroit* or the schools themselves. Out in (most of) the suburbs, with more recent infrastructure, all is relatively good.
* Just like how the acidic Flint River water leached minerals from their old pipes. Leaching can happen even with "good" water. My parents had a clean, new well in Minnesota that still left teal copper compounds in a ring around their tub almost since day one in 1991.
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Wednesday 29th August 2018 19:02 GMT Aodhhan
The brain trust of the sewage department has spoken
Yes, I'm sure the brightest computer scientists and engineers stand outside in the Michigan sunshine...err snow drifts to que for an opportunity to work at the sewage department.
Saving $1Mil is a huge sounding statement, until you realize where they were beforehand.
Since you chose Oracle... you likely would have saved even more money if you decided to use something else. You definitely will find, you will have a more secure database if you went with several different products.
If you had completed a good amount of technical research, you would have found out corporations are moving away from Oracle in favor of 2 to 3 other solutions.
You can't just look at your initial savings, you have to look at savings over the lifecycle of the product... in this case, about 4 years. Not to mention the risk increase/decrease... in the case of Oracle... it's a definite risk increase. Although, who cares if hackers get in to the database and start releasing a bit too much chemical into the wastewater? Especially knowing how well the sewer system drains in the old central part of Detroit, even if it only rains 0.25 of an inch.
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Thursday 30th August 2018 02:24 GMT Chairman of the Bored
A tale of two meetings...
I was in Dallas for a meeting of my own tribe and was quietly enjoying an adult beverage at the hotel bar.
Guy next to me thinks I part of the Civil Engineers' convention in the same hotel. He and his polyester tie swing around and he gives me a solid handshake, booming out "Hi! Sam's the name and $h!t's the game!" I think you could've heard him in NZ.
That was ... different.
I wonder of that's the kind of guy buying this Oracle shi..., er, KIT! I said "kit", ok?
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Thursday 30th August 2018 02:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Detroit has so many problems
There has been a lot of rebuilding in Detroit in recent years and many people are helping to resolve the many problems that Detroit and other large U.S. cities face. For years now they have been convicting Detroit city government officials for crime. If they are able to establish an honest government and reduce the crime then Detroit has a chance to become great again. I doubt however that use of the Oracle cloud will make a significant difference. More than likely the benefits are greater for Oracle than the city of Detroit.
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Thursday 30th August 2018 04:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Detroit has so many problems
Seems Detroit keeps ending up with laggards, first the automotive firms, now Oracle, last to "The Cloud." Not that I consider "The Cloud" as anything resembling a good idea for any concern where the database is core to the functioning of the enterprise. Hopefully, they won't regret this choice down the line.
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Thursday 30th August 2018 07:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
I can't read articles...
...like this without getting annoyed. They'll never admit when if it hasn't work and will always claim it saved money.
I know of one council who bought in an external company to create a report for their bullshit cloud move. The report was full of lies to convince the councillors it would save money. It hasn't. Its actually cost a hell of a lot more than they claimed it would save. Everyone is told to keep quiet as it can't be seen to fail now. The worst part was paying a company to migrate to GSuite when MS said "we'll migrate you for free" yet this was ignored. And the massive lie in the report that claimed GSuite would be cheaper ignoring the fact MS give local govs discounts so it would of actually been cheaper to migrate to Office 365.
Oh well.