# Pebble IT > Independent Australian database and cloud technology specialists with over 20 years of experience. Pebble IT supplies, implements, and manages high-performance infrastructure, virtualisation, data protection, and data management solutions for enterprise and government. They are technology-agnostic — not dominated by a single vendor partnership — and give clients genuinely independent advice to lower costs, avoid lock-in, and get more from existing IT investment. They have migrated, implemented, and managed over 10,000 databases for Australian enterprise and government clients. Pebble IT was founded to provide a local, independent alternative to vendor-driven IT consulting. As a rare managed service provider (MSP) trusted by market-leading vendors while remaining truly independent, they build technology stacks tailored to business needs without bias. They were the first Australian MSP to implement Oracle Exadata into enterprise and government agencies, the first MSP to migrate an Australian government agency to Oracle GovCloud (2024), and are Australia's only partner for Splendid Data (PostgresPURE and Cortex) and Spectral Core (Omni Loader and SQL Trans). Based in Australia; specialists operate from Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra, on-site or remote. ## Products ### Oracle Stack - [Oracle Database Standard Edition](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/products/oracle-database-standard-edition): Migration, optimisation, and managed services for Oracle Database Standard Edition. Specialists average 10+ years of experience, with a proven track record of delivering enterprise-grade performance at lower cost — including a documented case where a major enterprise avoided a $2M upgrade. - [Oracle Exadata](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/products/oracle-exadata): Expert implementation, migration, and managed services for Oracle Exadata engineered systems. Australia's first MSP to deploy Exadata into enterprise and government, including agencies in Papua New Guinea. - [Oracle APEX](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/products/oracle-apex): Full Oracle APEX development and end-to-end managed services — integration with existing systems, 24/7 support, performance optimisation, and licensing compliance. In 2024, Pebble IT became the first MSP to migrate an Australian government agency to Oracle GovCloud. - [Oracle Linux & KVM](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/products/oracle-linux-kvm): Advisory and managed services for Oracle Linux and KVM virtualisation — subscription compliance assessment, tailored configuration, and ongoing support from a consistent, Australian-based team. ### Open-Source & Migration - [PostgresPURE](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/products/postgrespure): Enterprise-grade, fully open-source PostgreSQL distribution by Splendid Data, exclusively available in Australia through Pebble IT. Integration-tested bundled releases with 24/7 expert support, predictable release management, and zero software licensing fees. Trusted by multinationals, financial services organisations, and government agencies. - [Cortex — Oracle to PostgreSQL Migration Automation](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/products/oracle-to-postgresql-cortex): Automation tool by Splendid Data for Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migrations. Performs semantic PL/SQL translation — understands code meaning, not just syntax — and delivers 100% native PostgreSQL output with no compatibility shims. Identifies 100% of Oracle objects before migration begins. Pebble IT is Australia's first and only Cortex partner. - [Azul OpenJDK](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/products/azul-openjdk): Enterprise-grade OpenJDK distribution — a stable, secure, high-performance replacement for Oracle Java SE. Eliminates Oracle Java licensing costs while ensuring compliance and a smooth transition for enterprise and government clients. ### Infrastructure & Cloud Tools - [Dell PowerFlex & Data Domain](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/products/dell-powerflex-data-domain): Implementation, migration, and managed services for Dell PowerFlex (software-defined infrastructure) and Dell Data Domain (data protection and backup) across enterprise and government environments. - [POCI — OCI Resource Scheduling](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/products/poci): Pebble IT's own Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) scheduling tool. Automatically starts and stops OCI resources on a defined schedule to eliminate waste and reduce cloud spend — purpose-built for Australian enterprise and government compliance requirements. ## Services ### Managed Services - [Cloud Services](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/services/cloud-service): Independent managed cloud services across public, private, and on-premise environments since 2010. Covers migrations to and from AWS, Azure, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure; licensing optimisation; disaster recovery; cloud security; patching; 24/7 monitoring; and multi-region tenancy management. Custom SLA agreements; no rigid contracts. - [Database Services](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/services/database-services): Fully managed database services for enterprise and government. Performance assessments, licensing reduction, SQL footprint minimisation, and ongoing 24/7 DBA support across Oracle, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server. Vendor-agnostic recommendations; Pebble IT takes over day-to-day operations so in-house teams can focus on the business. ### Professional Services - [Database Migrations](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/services/database-migrations): End-to-end, highly automated database migration service specialising in Oracle-to-PostgreSQL and any database to Microsoft Fabric. Full lifecycle: Assessment → Planning → Execution → Replication → Cutover → Post-Migration Support. Includes schema and PL/SQL conversion, application SQL translation, near-zero downtime migrations, and Exadata exit strategy. Australia's only partner for both Splendid Data (Cortex, PostgresPURE) and Spectral Core (Omni Loader, SQL Trans). - [Low-Code App Development](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/services/low-code-app-development): Oracle APEX-specialised low-code application development and advisory services. Australian-based team with deep enterprise experience. Platform selection consulting, enterprise-grade project delivery, and ongoing management. Available on-site in Sydney, Melbourne, or Canberra, or remote. ## Company & Resources - [About Pebble IT](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/about-pebble-it): Company history, independence philosophy, 20+ years of experience, 10,000+ database migrations, and technology-agnostic approach. Established 2003; privately owned. - [Insights](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/insights): Technical articles and case studies published by Pebble IT's senior engineers and DBAs — covering Oracle licensing, database migrations, cloud cost optimisation, open-source PostgreSQL, low-code development, and AI. 27 posts published between 2015 and 2026. - [Papua New Guinea](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/papua-new-guinea): Pebble IT has served Papua New Guinea's enterprise and government sector since 2010 — including deploying the country's first Oracle Exadata and first Dell PowerFlex — with infrastructure hosted in secure Australian data centres. - [Careers](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/careers): Working at Pebble IT — culture, remote and on-site roles, and how to apply. Roles may require Australian citizenship or security clearance. Send expressions of interest to careers@pebbleit.com.au. ## Engagement Pebble IT works on custom agreements — no rigid contracts, no lock-in. Engagements typically begin with a free, no-obligation video meeting with a senior Australian-based specialist, bookable online. To start a conversation: book a meeting at pebbleit.com.au/contact-us, call 1300 130 266 (general) or +61 2 9460 0000 (international), or email hello@pebbleit.com.au. Existing clients can reach the 24/7 support team on 1800 508 173 or support@pebbleit.com.au. ## Contact - [Contact Pebble IT](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/contact-us): Book a free, no-obligation video meeting with an Australian-based specialist, use the enquiry form, or reach the team directly. General: 1300 130 266 / hello@pebbleit.com.au. Support: 1800 508 173 / support@pebbleit.com.au. International: +61 2 9460 0000. On-site specialists available in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, and Papua New Guinea. # Pebble IT — Frequently Asked Questions --- ## Contents 1. [Oracle Optimisation](#1-oracle-optimisation) 2. [Migrating Oracle to PostgreSQL](#2-migrating-oracle-to-postgresql) 3. [PostgreSQL as an Oracle Offload for AI and Analytics](#3-postgresql-as-an-oracle-offload-for-ai-and-analytics) 4. [Oracle Standard Edition vs Oracle Enterprise Edition](#4-oracle-standard-edition-vs-oracle-enterprise-edition) 5. [Dell PowerFlex vs Oracle Exadata](#5-dell-powerflex-vs-oracle-exadata) 6. [POCI — Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Resource Scheduling](#6-poci--oracle-cloud-infrastructure-resource-scheduling) --- ## 1. Oracle Optimisation ### What is Oracle Optimisation? Oracle Optimisation is the practice of reducing an organisation's Oracle licensing cost, compliance exposure, and operational overhead — without necessarily replacing Oracle. It is minimising the cost for your Oracle estate. It also could be to use products and options that you pay from Oracle, and strategies to remove them from your support renewals if you are not making use of them. It combines deep technical knowledge of Oracle's product stack with an understanding of Oracle's licensing rules and commercial strategies. Oracle Optimisation typically includes identifying workloads that do not need to run on Oracle, eliminating unnecessary feature packs, right-sizing hardware for Oracle's per-processor licensing model, improving compliance posture before an audit occurs, and — where appropriate — offloading or migrating selected databases to lower-cost platforms such as PostgreSQL. ### Why is Oracle so expensive to run? The headline license fee is only part of the picture. The true cost of Oracle includes: - **Annual support fees** — typically 22% of the original license cost, every year, regardless of how heavily the database is used. It is subject to an annual CPI increase, in recent years and the forseeable future the support has been increasing 10% annually - **Processor-based licensing** — every physical CPU core running Oracle must be licensed, with a core factor applied per processor type - **Feature add-on packs** — capabilities such as Partitioning, Advanced Compression, Diagnostics & Tuning Pack, and Advanced Security Option each carry significant additional cost - **Audit exposure** — Oracle conducts software audits, and configuration errors — even innocent ones — can trigger demands for unlicensed use - **Cloud deployment restrictions** — Oracle's licensing policy effectively halves the capacity of processors on non-Oracle cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), making cloud migrations significantly more expensive - **Virtualisation complexity** — running Oracle on VMware, Hyper-V, or Nutanix without careful hard-partitioning can trigger full-server licensing across every core in the cluster Organisations often find that Oracle costs represent a disproportionate share of their IT budget relative to the actual business value the platform delivers. ### What does Oracle Optimisation actually involve? Pebble IT's Oracle Optimisation engagements typically cover: - **Workload analysis** — identifying which queries, reports, and applications are consuming Oracle processor capacity, and whether they need to - **Licensing audit readiness** — reviewing the configuration of every Oracle-running server to identify compliance gaps before Oracle does - **Feature pack review** — determining which Oracle options are licensed but unused, or used but unlicensed - **Hardware right-sizing** — assessing whether server hardware can be reconfigured or replaced to reduce the Oracle processor count - **Offloading assessment** — identifying read-only workloads (reporting, BI, integrations) that can be redirected to PostgreSQL via replication - **Migration feasibility** — evaluating whether selected Oracle databases can be fully migrated to PostgreSQL or Microsoft Fabric There is no preset recipe of what the outcomes can be, the most suitable outcomes are targeted for your organisation based on what the optimisation analysis reveals. ### What is Oracle's Multi-Chip Module (MCM) licensing change and why does it matter? Oracle updated its Technology Price List to redefine how CPU sockets are counted for Oracle Standard Edition (SE) licensing. Under the new definition, each chiplet within a modern multi-chip module CPU counts as a separate occupied socket. Modern server CPUs — including AMD EPYC 9654 (12 chiplets per socket) and Intel Xeon Sapphire Rapids 4th Gen — are built with multiple chiplets packaged in a single physical socket. Under Oracle's new definition, a server with a single physical socket but a 12-chiplet AMD EPYC CPU could be counted as having 12 occupied sockets. Oracle SE is only licensed for servers with a maximum of 2 sockets. This means Oracle SE may no longer be legally deployable on servers using: - **AMD EPYC** 3rd, 4th, or 5th generation CPUs - **Intel Xeon Sapphire Rapids** (4th Generation) CPUs - **IBM Power** 7+, Power 9, or Power 10 processors Organisations running Oracle SE on modern hardware should review their configuration immediately. Mitigation options include hard-pinning virtual machines to a chiplet-scoped core count, migrating to Oracle Cloud or AWS where the physical topology is abstracted, or migrating to PostgreSQL — which has no socket-based licensing whatsoever. ### How do I know if my Oracle environment is at risk of a compliance issue? Common risk indicators include: - Oracle SE running on servers with AMD EPYC, Intel Sapphire Rapids, or IBM Power 9/10 CPUs (MCM licensing change) - Oracle SE or EE running in a virtualised environment (VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix) without hard-partitioning - Oracle installed on cloud infrastructure other than Oracle Cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) without applying the 0.5 core factor - Using Oracle features such as Partitioning, Advanced Compression, or Transparent Data Encryption without confirming they are covered by your license - Running Oracle on more physical sockets than your license covers - Not having a current, documented inventory of every Oracle installation in the environment Pebble IT offers a compliance assessment that reviews the environment against Oracle's current licensing rules and identifies exposure before an audit occurs. --- ## 2. Migrating Oracle to PostgreSQL ### Why are organisations migrating from Oracle to PostgreSQL? The primary driver is cost. A representative 5-year total cost of ownership comparison shows approximately a 90% reduction in database licensing and support costs when migrating from Oracle Enterprise Edition to PostgreSQL with PostgresPURE support. Oracle licensing costs for a mid-sized environment — including production and non-production — can run to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. PostgreSQL carries no per-processor or per-user licensing fees; infrastructure cost only. Secondary drivers include: - Freedom from Oracle's audit practices and compliance complexity - Ability to deploy on any cloud platform without licensing penalties - Ability to scale on modern hardware (including AMD EPYC and ARM) without licensing consequences - Digital sovereignty and open-source alignment, increasingly required in government procurement - PostgreSQL's enterprise feature set — ACID compliance, MVCC, window functions, CTEs, JSON/JSONB, PostGIS — now meets or exceeds Oracle's capabilities for the majority of enterprise workloads ### Is PostgreSQL actually enterprise-ready? Yes. PostgreSQL is the world's most advanced open-source relational database and is used at scale by organisations including Apple, Spotify, Instagram, Reddit, and major financial institutions globally. It provides full ACID transactional compliance, MVCC concurrency, advanced SQL (window functions, CTEs, recursive queries), native JSON/JSONB, full-text search, and spatial data via PostGIS. Unlike Oracle, PostgreSQL can be deployed on any hardware, any cloud provider, and any operating system — without licensing restrictions, without audit risk, and without vendor lock-in. Pebble IT offers PostgresPURE — an enterprise-grade PostgreSQL distribution by Splendid Data that bundles PostgreSQL with integration-tested components for replication, connection pooling, backup/recovery, tools to give you insights, and partition management. PostgresPURE is backed by 24/7 SLA support fronted by Pebble IT's local team. ### How does the Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migration actually work? Pebble IT uses leading tools to deliver automated schema and code translation, and a variety of tools for data migration and live replication, and Pebble IT's experience ensures these tools are properly utilised and that typical challenges are avoided. Three migration approaches are available depending on the organisation's appetite for downtime and database size: **Approach 1 — Convert from a restored database copy** A copy of the Oracle database is taken at a known System Change Number (SCN). The data as of that SCN is copied into PostgreSQL and SharePlex replicates all changes from that SCN forward to the PostgreSQL target. When replication has caught up, the business can either let the replication continue until a convenient time and cuts over the application(s). Advantage: single outage at cutover only. Best for: mission-critical systems with low downtime tolerance. Limitation: Requires an additional Oracle instllation. **Approach 2 — Convert with a planned outage** During a scheduled outage or period of minimal activity, SharePlex copies all data to PostgreSQL. Oracle is then brought back into production and changes are replicated across until application cutover. Advantage: simple, no additional hardware. Limitation: requires two outage windows, however these can be spread apart by days or weeks. **Approach 3 — Convert without an outage** Data conversion occurs while Oracle is in use. Use a separate process to copy the data and then a CDC tool to replicate the changes until the PostgreSQL database is in sync with the source Oracle database. Advantage: single outage at cutover. Limitation: potentially higher complexity depending upon databbase size and underlying infrastructure capability. ### What is Cortex and why is it better than manual migration or free tools? Cortex is an Oracle-to-PostgreSQL migration automation tool developed by Splendid Data. Pebble IT is Australia's first and only Cortex partner. The fundamental difference between Cortex and traditional migration tools — including free open-source alternatives — is that Cortex performs semantic translation rather than syntax find-and-replace. It understands the *intent* of Oracle PL/SQL code and generates equivalent native PostgreSQL PL/pgSQL — not a compatibility shim that wraps Oracle syntax in a proprietary layer. Key Cortex capabilities: - **Semantic PL/SQL translation** — understands code logic, not just syntax - **Automatic dependency resolution** — maps all relationships between Oracle objects before conversion begins - **100% identification of Oracle internal IP** — every Oracle-proprietary object and feature is identified upfront, with clear guidance on what needs to be addressed - **Container-based consistency** — every migration runs in a standardised environment, eliminating "works on my machine" variability - **Git and Jira integration** — migration output integrates directly with development workflows - **100% native PostgreSQL output** — no proprietary intermediate layers or ongoing Oracle dependency Real-world results: 10–20x productivity improvement compared to manual migration; 90–95% automated conversion rate for typical Oracle databases; weeks instead of months for migration projects. ### What happens to the Oracle license after migration? Once a database has been migrated from Oracle to PostgreSQL and the Oracle instance is decommissioned, the Oracle processor licenses associated with that server are no longer required. Organisations can choose to reduce their Oracle support contract at renewal, or in some cases terminate licenses entirely. Pebble IT provides Oracle optimisation advice as part of migration engagements — including how to structure the conversation with Oracle at renewal to avoid being locked into continued support fees for licenses that are no longer needed. --- ## 3. PostgreSQL as an Oracle Offload for AI and Analytics ### What is Oracle offloading to PostgreSQL? Oracle offloading is the practice of redirecting read-only workloads — reporting, business intelligence queries, data warehouse extraction, AI/ML pipelines, and third-party integrations — away from Oracle and onto a PostgreSQL replica that receives real-time data via Change Data Capture replication. The Oracle database continues to serve all transactional workloads. A CDC tool replicates every committed change to PostgreSQL in near-real-time — with sub-second to second latency. The PostgreSQL replica is configured as read-only for all end users and systems, protecting replication integrity. The financial outcome is cost avoidance: by serving read-only workloads from PostgreSQL, organisations eliminate the processor utilisation growth that would otherwise require additional Oracle license purchases as the business grows. ### Why is cost avoidance often more valuable than cost reduction in an Oracle context? Cost reduction means paying less for something you currently pay for. Cost avoidance means preventing a future cost from arising at all. In the Oracle context, cost avoidance is frequently the more valuable outcome. Every new business intelligence project, every new reporting user, every new AI workload added to an Oracle database increases processor utilisation — and in Oracle's licensing model, that growth can trigger the need to purchase additional processor licenses. At Oracle Enterprise Edition list pricing, a single additional processor license represents a substantial capital commitment plus 22% annual support in perpetuity. By redirecting those workloads to PostgreSQL, the cost is avoided entirely. PostgreSQL can be deployed on high-core, high-memory servers — including AMD EPYC and ARM processors — without any licensing cost. The organisation scales its analytics and AI capacity without any Oracle licensing consequence. > A growing reporting user base should never trigger an Oracle processor purchase. PostgreSQL eliminates this risk entirely. ### How does replication from Oracle to PostgreSQL work without impacting Oracle's performance? Modern CDC tools read Oracle's redo &/or archive logs — the transaction journal Oracle maintains independently of any external tool. This means: - No queries execute against production tables - No triggers are created on the source database - No agents run inside Oracle's process space - Oracle has no awareness that replication is occurring - Production Oracle performance is not impacted Changes captured from the redo logs are transmitted to PostgreSQL and applied in near-real-time. They support one-to-many topologies (one Oracle source replicating to multiple targets), many-to-one (multiple Oracle sources to a single PostgreSQL target), and cross-environment (Oracle on-premise to PostgreSQL in cloud). ### How does AI consume data from PostgreSQL without impacting Oracle licensing? Because the PostgreSQL replica is a completely separate database instance — connected to Oracle only through one-directional CDC replication. Any workload that runs with the PostgreSQL carries zero Oracle licensing consequence. AI and machine learning workloads are among the most compute-intensive database consumers. Running model training, inference pipelines, embedding generation, or semantic search against Oracle would consume significant processor capacity — and in Oracle's licensing model, that translates directly to license cost. On PostgreSQL: - AI services connect directly to PostgreSQL via standard interfaces (JDBC, ODBC, SQLAlchemy, psycopg2, or native PostgreSQL drivers) - GPU-attached compute nodes can query PostgreSQL without triggering any database licensing - **pgvector** enables native vector storage and similarity search — the foundation of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and semantic search pipelines — directly in PostgreSQL without additional tooling - **JSONB support** handles semi-structured AI model output, embeddings, and metadata natively - Python data science libraries (pandas, SQLAlchemy, psycopg2, LangChain, LlamaIndex) integrate seamlessly with PostgreSQL - Horizontal scaling via read replicas allows multiple AI workloads to run in parallel without resource contention - The Azure PostgreSQL service actively promotes PostgreSQL as an AI/ML native database The data available to AI services is always current — typical CDC replication latency is sub-second to seconds, meaning the PostgreSQL replica reflects production Oracle data in near-real-time. ### What Oracle workloads are best suited to offloading to PostgreSQL? Workloads that belong on PostgreSQL rather than Oracle include: - **Operational reporting** — daily, weekly, and monthly reports generated by business users that query large portions of the database - **Business intelligence queries** — ad-hoc and scheduled queries from BI tools (Power BI, Tableau, Looker, Oracle Analytics Cloud) - **Data warehouse extraction** — ETL jobs that extract from Oracle to feed a data warehouse or data platform (Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake, Azure Synapse) - **AI and ML model training** — workloads that read large volumes of historical data to train or fine-tune models - **Third-party application integrations** — ERP add-ons, API endpoints, and integration middleware that read Oracle data but do not write to it - **Read-only API endpoints** — web application backends serving data to customers or partners that only read data - **Historical data queries** — queries against archived or historical records that rarely or never change Oracle under-performs not just under transactional load but commonly under reporting load. Symptoms of reporting-induced Oracle performance degradation include CPU spikes during business hours rather than transaction peaks, I/O contention between long-running analytical queries and short transactional operations, lock contention, and shared pool pressure from large analytical datasets. Offloading these workloads to PostgreSQL restores Oracle's performance for transactional use while serving analytical users from PostgreSQL. ### Does offloading to PostgreSQL require me to eventually migrate away from Oracle? No. Offloading and migration are separate strategies. Many organisations choose to keep Oracle as their transactional database indefinitely and use PostgreSQL exclusively as a read replica for analytics, AI, and reporting. This is a valid, long-term architecture. For organisations that do wish to migrate fully from Oracle to PostgreSQL, the offloading architecture provides a de-risked starting point: the PostgreSQL replica already contains a current, validated copy of the Oracle data, the team has operational experience running PostgreSQL, and the migration — when it comes — involves directing application writes to PostgreSQL rather than Oracle, with SharePlex replication then reversed or discontinued. Emerging examples are: - Business Intelligence Reporting consumes heavy compute requirements. Rather than purchase additional Oracle licensing, replicate the data to PostgreSQL and report from the PostgreSQL database. This gives you the freedom to have massive compute resources against the PostgreSQL database whilst maintaining small cost-effective licensing of the Oracle database for the application users. - AI consumption of data. Instead of allowing AI agents to perform unlimited queries or perform unpredictable actions in your Oracle database where your valuable application data resides, replicate the data to PostgreSQL and let the AI run amok, any unintended damaage has zero impact to the source Oracle database. Data protection in the era of AI is crucial and must not be sacrificed in the race to stay current with Artificial Intelligence strategies - Custom Application Inquiries. Rather than build custom inquiries in vendor provided applications, data can be replicated to PostgreSQL and the technology of your choosing can be used. If data is to be written, providing it is not required upstream in the Oracle database, custom applications off the side of the main applications can be deployed and provide protection from the source vendor upgrades. - Public consumption of data. Rather than have connections from public or external facing web pages, data instead could be obtained from PostgreSQL. This may also assist public organisations achieve 24/7 availability of their data whilst the source Oracle databases are taken offline for patching and upgrades, where PostgreSQL replicas could be used to give full 24/7/365 availability. --- ## 4. Oracle Standard Edition vs Oracle Enterprise Edition ### What is the difference between Oracle Standard Edition and Oracle Enterprise Edition? Oracle Database Standard Edition 2 (SE2) and Enterprise Edition (EE) are the two main licensing tiers for Oracle's on-premise database product. The cost difference is substantial — EE list pricing is several multiples of SE2, and EE's most commonly required features (Advanced Security, Diagnostics & Tuning Pack, Partitioning, Real Application Clusters) are separately licensed options on top of the EE base price. Virtaul Private Databases (VPDs) and Bitmap indexes are not available in SE2, nor is Fine Grained Auditing - however unified auditing is still available in SE2. SE2 includes Oracle's core relational database engine — full SQL compliance, PL/SQL, triggers, stored procedures, Spatial, and Oracle Application Express (APEX). SE2 is limited to servers with a maximum of 2 CPU sockets and up to 16 user-assigned CPUs in a RAC cluster. EE removes the socket and CPU restrictions and adds the option to license advanced capabilities. However, the key word is "option" — each EE feature pack is priced and licensed separately, and many organisations running EE are paying for feature packs they either do not use or could replace with lower-cost third-party alternatives. ### When does Oracle Standard Edition make sense? Oracle SE2 is the right choice when: - The workload fits within SE2's socket constraints (maximum 2 physical sockets, or within Oracle Cloud / AWS SE2 service limits) - The database does not require Real Application Clusters (RAC) at the Oracle level - High availability and disaster recovery can be achieved through third-party replication rather than Oracle Data Guard - Encryption at rest can be provided by a third-party solution (e.g., Randtronics) rather than Oracle's Advanced Security Option - Performance monitoring and diagnostics can be handled by a third-party tool (e.g., Quest Foglight) rather than Oracle's Diagnostics & Tuning Pack Pebble IT has documented a case where a major enterprise avoided a $2M Oracle upgrade by remaining on SE2 with third-party tooling providing the EE-equivalent capabilities they needed. ### Can Oracle Standard Edition be made as resilient and secure as Enterprise Edition? Yes — in the majority of enterprise use cases. The three capabilities that most commonly push organisations toward EE are: **High availability and disaster recovery (Data Guard):** CDC solutions provide real-time data replication to a disaster recovery site, with near-zero downtime failover. SharePlex supports Oracle-to-Oracle replication (SE2 source to SE2 or EE target), Oracle-to-PostgreSQL replication, and replication across on-premise and cloud environments. It is the replication engine at the heart of Pebble IT's Oracle optimisation and offloading strategies. **Encryption at rest (Advanced Security Option / TDE):** Randtronics provides Transparent Data Encryption for Oracle SE2 databases, fulfilling the encryption requirements of Australian government and financial services security frameworks without the need for Oracle's Advanced Security Option. **Performance monitoring and diagnostics (Diagnostics & Tuning Pack):** Quest Foglight provides comprehensive database performance monitoring, diagnostics, and query tuning intelligence — equivalent to Oracle's Diagnostics & Tuning Pack — at significantly lower cost. Combined with Oracle Linux and KVM for the infrastructure layer, this stack delivers enterprise-grade security, high availability, and performance management on Oracle SE2 at a fraction of the Oracle EE equivalent cost. ### What are the risks of running Oracle Standard Edition that organisations should be aware of? **The March 2025 MCM licensing change:** Oracle now counts each chiplet in modern multi-chip module CPUs as a separate socket. This means SE2 may not be legally deployable on servers running AMD EPYC (3rd gen+), Intel Xeon Sapphire Rapids (4th gen), or IBM Power 9/10 CPUs. Organisations on affected hardware should review their configuration and, if necessary, implement hard-pinned virtualisation to limit the Oracle-visible socket count, or begin planning a migration to cloud or PostgreSQL. **Socket creep:** SE2's 2-socket limit is straightforward on dedicated bare-metal servers but requires careful management in virtualised environments. If a VM is live-migrated to a host with more sockets than the license permits, the installation becomes non-compliant. **Growth ceiling:** SE2's architecture limits the scale-up path. Organisations experiencing rapid transaction volume growth may eventually reach the point where SE2's capacity constraints become a bottleneck — at which point the choice is EE (expensive), Exadata (very expensive), or migration to PostgreSQL (zero licensing cost, unlimited scaling). **Oracle's preference:** Oracle has a strong commercial interest in moving SE2 customers to EE or Oracle Cloud. The MCM licensing change, and Oracle's increasing focus on cloud-based SE2 services, suggest a strategic direction that makes long-term SE2 on modern on-premise hardware progressively more complex to manage. ### What is Oracle's SE2 stack and why does Pebble IT refer to it? The "Oracle SE Stack" refers to Pebble IT's recommended architecture for organisations committed to remaining on Oracle SE2 for the medium term. It combines: - **Oracle Database Standard Edition 2** as the core database engine - **CDC Replication** for high availability and disaster recovery replication (replacing Data Guard) - **Randtronics** for Transparent Data Encryption (replacing Oracle Advanced Security Option) - **Third Party Monitoring** for performance monitoring and diagnostics (replacing Oracle Diagnostics & Tuning Pack) - **Oracle Linux with KVM** as the virtualisation and operating system platform - **Replication to PostgreSQL** for read-only offloading of reporting and analytics workloads This stack delivers EE-equivalent capabilities at SE2 pricing, with the additional benefit of a PostgreSQL replica for analytics and AI workloads at no additional Oracle licensing cost. --- ## 5. Dell PowerFlex vs Oracle Exadata ### What are Dell PowerFlex and Oracle Exadata, and when would you choose one over the other? Oracle Exadata is an engineered system — hardware and software designed and sold together by Oracle specifically to run Oracle Databases. It delivers outstanding performance for Oracle workloads through deep integration between Oracle's database software and the underlying storage, networking, and compute. Exadata is Oracle's premium on-premise database platform. Dell PowerFlex is a software-defined infrastructure platform. It separates compute from storage, allows each to be scaled independently, and is not tied to any single workload or database vendor. PowerFlex supports Oracle, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, VMware, and non-database workloads in a single unified infrastructure. The choice between the two depends on workload profile, budget, flexibility requirements, and vendor strategy. ### What are the strengths of Oracle Exadata? - **Oracle performance:** Exadata is purpose-built for Oracle and delivers measurably superior Oracle workload performance through features such as Smart Scan (offloading query processing to storage cells), Hybrid Columnar Compression, and RDMA-based storage networking - **Oracle support simplicity:** Oracle supports the entire Exadata stack — hardware, firmware, OS, and database — through a single support contract - **Mission-critical Oracle workloads:** For the largest, most performance-sensitive Oracle OLTP and OLAP workloads, Exadata remains the gold standard - **Proven at scale:** Pebble IT has migrated over 100 Oracle databases from Exadata X7 to Exadata X10M in a single project for a Federal Agency, including Oracle Linux 7 to 8 upgrade and OVM to KVM virtualisation migration. Australia's first Oracle Exadata was deployed by Pebble IT; Australia's first X10M Exadata was also Pebble IT's work ### What are the limitations of Oracle Exadata? - **Oracle lock-in:** Exadata runs Oracle. It cannot be repurposed for non-Oracle workloads without significant waste — the platform is over-specified for many use cases and under-specified for others - **Bill of Materials rigidity:** Exadata's configuration options are constrained. Organisations frequently find they have too much of some resources (e.g., compute) and not enough of others (e.g., RAM), with limited ability to rebalance - **Cost:** Exadata is Oracle's most expensive on-premise platform. Hardware, software, and support costs are substantial - **Exadata exit complexity:** Migrating away from Exadata requires careful planning. Pebble IT has experience in advising organisations on how to transition off Exadata onto more optimised solutions. ### What are the strengths of Dell PowerFlex? - **Workload versatility:** PowerFlex runs Oracle, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, VMware, and non-database workloads. A single infrastructure platform can serve the entire data centre - **Independent scaling:** Compute nodes and storage nodes scale independently. Organisations can add storage without adding compute, or vice versa — matching actual growth patterns rather than being forced into fixed configuration increments - **Cost efficiency:** It is possible to have 50%+ savings over using Oracle Exadata and is likely that you can accomodate additional non-database workloads to achieve even further efficiency - **Non-Oracle workload support:** WebLogic, Oracle Standard Edition, non-Oracle databases, and general application workloads can all run on PowerFlex — eliminating the need for a separate infrastructure investment - **Vendor independence:** PowerFlex is not tied to Oracle's licensing or support model, giving organisations genuine choice in their database platform strategy ### When should an organisation choose Exadata over PowerFlex? Choose Exadata when: - The primary workload is Oracle Enterprise Edition at high transaction volumes and the organisation is committed to Oracle long-term - Oracle-specific performance features (Smart Scan, HCC) are required for the workload - The organisation is moving to Oracle Cloud or Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer - Oracle manages the entire support relationship and single-vendor support simplicity is valued ### When should an organisation choose PowerFlex over Exadata? Choose PowerFlex when: - The infrastructure must support multiple database platforms or mixed workloads (Oracle + PostgreSQL + SQL Server + general application) - Oracle Standard Edition has a role to play in optimising the Oracle license costs - The organisation's Oracle strategy includes offloading or migration to PostgreSQL — PowerFlex can run both in parallel during transition - The organisation wants to avoid Exadata's BoM constraints and prefers flexible, independent scaling of compute and storage - Total cost of ownership over a 5-year period is a primary decision driver ### Can PowerFlex deliver Oracle performance comparable to Exadata for Standard Edition workloads? Oracle Sales are very quick to highlight the performance of the Oracle Exadata. And that is correct -- the Exadata operates databases very quickly. But the database is merely one component in a multi-components system (albeit an important one). Whilst the Exadata might achieve a 25ms return of a particular piece of information, if the application server takes 200ms to send the Exadata request and another 300ms to process the Exadata return before relaying back to the user, the total time is 525ms. Re-engineering this solution to be on Dell PowerFlex could lower the application server times considerably, particularly if 'adjacent computing' principles are deployed where the communication between the application server (VM) adjacent database (VM) could be measured in microseconds (1/100th of a millisecond), it is plausibel that an increase in database performance could yield a quicker outcome to the user. 100 ms in processing the original response on better application infrastructure, 75ms for database operations and 100ms to process the response and relay to the user is a total 275ms. This is a very simplified example of what is possible, but is real and has been witnessed in real-world deployments. It has been seen at customer's sites that Oracle WebLogic as an example can have 10-100 interactions with an Oracle data, to remove as little as 20ms from each call could have massive implications of the end result to the calling application. Having computing to occur between components of the same system within a single PowerFlex stack also means that traffic is not flowing through your internal network - only the request and response is, and this could also have a significant impact upon the network. PowerFlex exceeds Oracle storage resiliency and offers more nodes for clustering. Whilst Exadata is fast, it is proprietary, it is expensive, it is difficult to maintain, and requires very exclusive specialist knowledge that is difficult to source. PowerFlex minimises these exposures, and it has many features that Exadata cannot match. ### What does an Exadata exit look like and what does Pebble IT offer? An Exadata exit is the process of migrating Oracle databases from an Exadata platform to an alternative — either a different Oracle platform (PowerFlex, standard server), a cloud platform, or a different database (PostgreSQL). Often it is a combination of the before mentioned. It requires knowledge of the source system (Exadata) as well as the destination target. Being experts that manage Oracle Exadata, Dell PowerFlex, Oracle Enterprise & Standard Editions as well as PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server, Pebble IT can offer a comprehensive all-encompassing view on how to transition from source to target and the likely challenges to be encountred. --- ## 6. POCI — Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Resource Scheduling ### What is POCI? POCI is a cloud resource scheduling tool developed and maintained by Pebble IT specifically for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). It automatically starts and stops OCI resources — compute instances, database instances, and other schedulable resources — on a defined schedule, eliminating the cost of running resources during periods they are not needed. POCI is Pebble IT's own intellectual property — not an Oracle product. It was developed to address a gap in OCI's native tooling: while OCI provides powerful cloud infrastructure, its native cost governance tools do not provide the fine-grained, schedule-driven automation that enterprise and government clients require to eliminate idle resource spend. It has been in operation since 2021 and is used in commercial OCI realms globally and in Australia's GovCloud. ### Why do OCI costs spiral without resource scheduling? Cloud infrastructure is billed by consumption — typically by the hour or by the second. A compute instance that is running but not serving any workload costs the same as one under full load. In typical enterprise OCI environments: - Development and test environments run 24/7 but are only used during business hours (approximately 40–50 hours per week out of 168 available) - Staging and QA environments run continuously but are actively used only during scheduled release windows - Training and demonstration environments are used on-demand but left running between sessions - Batch processing environments run workloads during narrow windows but are provisioned continuously Without scheduling automation, an organisation pays for 168 hours per week of compute capacity regardless of whether those hours are needed. For environments with significant compute and database resources, this represents a substantial and ongoing waste. POCI addresses this by bringing resource scheduling to OCI with enterprise-grade reliability, support for new OCI resource types as they are released, and automated operations managed by Pebble IT's team. ### What types of OCI resources can POCI schedule? It typically schedules Virtual Instances and Database Services including Autonomous Database. ### How much can POCI save on an OCI bill? The savings depend on how many resources are running unnecessarily and for how long. As a simplified illustration: A development environment running Oracle Database Cloud Service and several compute instances in OCI — left running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — can be shut down outside business hours (e.g., 6pm to 7am weekdays, and all weekend). This reduces the running hours from 168 per week to approximately 55 per week — a reduction of approximately 67% in compute hours billed for those resources. For larger environments with multiple development, test, and staging tenancies, the aggregate saving can be significant. ### How is POCI different from OCI's native scheduling features? OCI provides some native automation capabilities through its Resource Scheduler service, Instance Configurations, and OCI Functions. POCI differs in the following ways: - **Scope of resource types:** POCI is maintained to support new OCI resource types as they are released, providing broader coverage than OCI's native scheduler at any given time - **Operational management:** POCI is managed by Pebble IT's team as a managed service — clients do not need to build or maintain the automation themselves - **Enterprise governance:** POCI is designed for Australian enterprise and government compliance requirements, with appropriate controls, logging, and change management - **Integration with Pebble IT's managed cloud service:** POCI operates as part of Pebble IT's broader OCI managed service, meaning changes to schedules, new resource types, and issue resolution are handled by Pebble IT's team ### Who is POCI for? POCI is designed for Australian enterprise and government organisations running workloads on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, particularly those that: - Run multiple OCI tenancies (production, non-production, development, test, staging) - Have variable workload patterns — batch processing, business-hours-only applications, on-demand environments - Need to demonstrate value for money in cloud spend, particularly in government where ICT procurement scrutiny is high - Are subject to strict compliance requirements and prefer managed tooling with clear audit trails over self-managed scripts Pebble IT has served enterprise and government clients on OCI since the platform's Australian availability, including deploying Oracle GovCloud for a government agency in 2024 — the first Australian MSP to do so. ### How do I get started with POCI? POCI is available as part of Pebble IT's OCI managed cloud service. To discuss your OCI environment and how POCI can reduce your cloud spend, book a free, no-obligation meeting at [pebbleit.com.au/contact-us](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/contact-us), call 1300 130 266, or email hello@pebbleit.com.au. --- ## About Pebble IT Pebble IT is an independent Australian database and cloud technology specialist established in 2003. With over 20 years of experience and more than 10,000 databases migrated, implemented, and managed, Pebble IT serves enterprise and government clients across Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and the broader Pacific region. Pebble IT is technology-agnostic — not dominated by any single vendor partnership — and provides independent advice that delivers genuine value rather than vendor-driven outcomes. They are: - Australia's first MSP to deploy Oracle Exadata into enterprise and government - Australia's first MSP to migrate a government agency to Oracle GovCloud (2024) - Australia's only partner for Splendid Data (PostgresPURE and Cortex) - Australia's only partner for Spectral Core (Omni Loader and SQL Trans) **Contact:** [pebbleit.com.au/contact-us](https://www.pebbleit.com.au/contact-us) **Phone:** 1300 130 266 (general) | +61 2 9460 0000 (international) **Email:** hello@pebbleit.com.au **Support:** 1800 508 173 | support@pebbleit.com.au