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This can all be managed through “one single pane of glass” called the Oracle Enterprise Manager, says New- gaard. “We see a lot of our customers doing this in their da- tacenters through an on-premises cloud,” he says. “The true differentiator for us is that, if you don’t have room in your on-premises cloud to do test and development, you can do it in Oracle’s public cloud and have a consistent experience and move everything dynamically back and forth.”
THE NEW PUBLIC SECTOR
The public sector in which Oracle and its competitors now operate is much different than it was just a few years ago. The biggest shift Newgaard has seen is governments’ need to get a lot more out of the data it collects. That includes such things as geospatial data to provide the kind of activi- ty-based intelligence on which the Defense Department and intelligence agencies now rely.
That has changed what’s required of database technology, he says. It’s no longer so much about “doing the accounting,” but instead involves “doing a cross
up between the data repositories and linking into the business intelligence systems to solve problems and affect mission outcomes.”
That means companies like Oracle need to offer a much broader portfolio of solutions, along with compute and data capabilities, to help solve a much more diverse set of problems agencies now face. By engineering these hardware and software solutions to work together, Oracle helps reduce their risk in bringing valuable new systems to production. When developers and administrators no longer have to focus on the basics of keeping systems operating, they can add value to the agency mission.
Whether an agency wants to connect better to citizen needs, react faster to protect the homeland, or achieve better outcomes for fewer healthcare dollars; having the infrastructure benefits that Oracle can provide is essential.
Newgaard admits not everyone is sold on Oracle’s approach to converged infrastructure. There may be some who are “dyed in the wool” and prefer to go with a traditional approach, building the infrastructure piecemeal themselves using commodity technology. However, he says, “at the end of the day that becomes a pretty herculean task to manage, and it’s certainly not the least expensive way.”
The size, scope, breadth and financial wellness of the business partner have become equally critical. Perhaps that’s even more important these days, “because agencies
have to accommodate much greater constituency demands through things like mobile technology access, security and privacy concerns, rapid response for requests with little additional funding,” says Newgaard. “They just can’t afford to do it on their own anymore.”
The growing movement to the cloud greatly increases the risks in the traditional approach. That is something he believes gives Oracle the lead in it needs for its converged infrastructure. He says the Oracle solution set helps its government users get from point A to B in the most efficient manner.
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ALL ABOUT THE CHANNEL
Key to Oracle’s government business is its channel partner organization, through which it conducts almost all of its agency sales. “I think we have the finest channel organization internally, and the finest set of channel partners that are the essential enablers of Oracle technology,” says Newgaard.
Oracle has a broad portfolio of channel partners made up
of traditional resellers and system integrators who range in size, focus, and service offerings, managed by Dennis Morgan, Group Vice President of Public Sector Channels. Oracle partners specialize in architecting, migrating and managing application workloads running on Oracle infrastructure, which helps customers simplify, improve performance and reduce the cost of their IT infrastructure. The channel’s capabilities span pre-and post-sales implementation across the entire Oracle product portfolio—and Oracle is always looking for new partners to expand its available solution providers.
The government market is particularly dependent on the expertise of such partners. Most of its procurement, from funding obligation through program source selection, is handled through a variety of different contracts and buying vehicles. The process may even differ depending on the agency.
The expertise each partner has with specific agencies and the knowledge of how that agency’s contracting is done is vital to Oracle. “So, our partners are the conduit for us to get to market, because they own those contracts,” says Newgaard. “That won’t change in the future.”