back to 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 …

  1. Korev Silver badge
    Joke

    What a crap article...

    1. Ima Ballsy
      Facepalm

      Awww .....

      That's cause the $hitters full .....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It sure was a large data dump. Better check the log.

      1. Korev Silver badge
        Coat

        The repoo log?

    3. TheVogon

      Shit happens...

      I bet they would have saved more by moving to anything not made by Oracle.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      But...

      Instead of it being a crap article, think of it as the waft of a light breeze following lunch with Oracle PR.

      The real crap will come when DWSD realise they're deep in the brown stuff and they can no longer get out...

      1. Fatman

        Re: But...

        <quote>The real crap will come when DWSD realise they're deep in the brown stuff and they can no longer get out...</quote>

        But, the real question is: "Will that CIO be in charge the day they finally realize that Oracle has them by the balls?"

  2. Korev Silver badge
    Coat

    DB parameters?

    How often do the flush their cache?

  3. Locky
    Mushroom

    Going the wrong way

    "DWSD can focus business strategies and priorities toward their number one priority – their customers."

    I'm pretty sure most customers want their priorities to go away from them, not towards them

    1. sorry, what?
      Coat

      Re: Going the wrong way

      Surely their number one priority is our number twos?

  4. hammarbtyp

    Its a bit like claiming that moving to Sky has saved you £120 because they have a £10 per month special offer, and not thinking about what happens after the initial offer expires

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I'm still trying to get my head around why they spend so much on this to begin with..

  5. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Oracle won't care

    Larry will be able to buy a whole country when Google coughs up their damages.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Oracle won't care

      I don't think he'll have tablespace for all that money....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oracle won't care

        Oracle NUMBER can have have a precision of 38 digits - I'm sure it was designed around Larry ego, and his desired bank account size.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Leave poor Larry alone

          He's an old man and can't defend himself.

  6. Jay Lenovo
    Holmes

    Courtesy flush

    The Oracle Cloud:

    All seems great, until that initial Poo~Pourri deal runs out.

  7. Merrill

    But can they collect bills?

    DWSD has a lot of trouble collecting the money owed for services provided.

    https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2018/03/26/more-than-17000-detroit-homes-face-water-shutoffs-official-says-the-problem-is-poverty

  8. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
    Trollface

    department 15 to 17 per cent in operating costs

    Next year I bet Oracle raise prices by 15 to 17 per cent.

    1. analyzer
      Devil

      Re: department 15 to 17 per cent in operating costs

      Stop talking crap, they never raise prices by so little

  9. cd

    Now Detroit can go down the shitter again.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    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.)

    1. Potemkine! Silver badge
      1. Anonymous Coward
        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.

  11. 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.

  12. Dippywood

    The DWSD is now reliant upon...

    Oracle Database Excretedata Cloud Service...

  13. 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?

    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: A tale of two meetings...

      I wonder of that's the kind of guy buying this Oracle shi..., er, KIT! I said "kit", ok?

      Yes, but you meant to say 'shit'...and you'd have been correct.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    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.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      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.

  15. This post has been deleted by its author

  16. Anonymous Coward
    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.

  17. Giovani Tapini

    Just think

    how much more they could have saved if the solution had not been supplied by Big Red...

  18. Ken 16 Silver badge
    Holmes

    Ailementary, my dear Watson

  19. mix
    Joke

    I'd heard...

    That Detroit was a big toilet.

  20. Ilsa Loving

    Next Year

    I want to hear their comments next year when Oracle has them firmly locked in and starts cranking up the prices.

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