County Council appreciates Mokum's cost-effective approach to its Oracle upgrade
Customer challenge
To ensure effective Oracle support by upgrading to the latest version of the E-Business Suite.
Solution
A three-month upgrade project in partnership with Mokum.
Key Benefits
- An efficient working relationship with Oracle Support.
- A cost-effective, fixed price, efficient upgrade service.
- Effective knowledge transfer from Mokum to the Council's Database Administrator.
North Yorkshire County Council provides services to half a million people in England’s largest county. The region’s traditional industries of agriculture, mining and power generation have been complemented by technology, service and tourism to create a healthy and growing economy.
North Yorkshire County Council runs all its accounting transactions on the financial modules of the Oracle E-Business Suite and needs to be sure of obtaining the best support from Oracle should a problem develop. The Council is aware that to get the best service, it must remain on up to date software and was therefore, keen to upgrade to the latest version of Oracle E-Business suite.
Looking for a transparent approach
The requirement was for a straightforward, technical upgrade and an open approach to the project. Like all public sector organisations, the Council's budgets are closely scrutinised, so it was important that potential partners were clear about what they were going to do, what the outcome would be and how much it would cost.
The Council invited tenders from potential partners and selected Mokum from a shortlist of three. "Mokum has a good track record and we felt very comfortable both with the people who would be involved in the project and with the way Mokum proposed to work," says David Tarren, Systems Manager at North Yorkshire County Council.
A mutually beneficial work style
For the duration of the 3-month project, Mokum provided a Senior Database Administrator who worked with the Council's Database Administrator to achieve the upgrade. This partnership approach contributed to ensuring that everything ran smoothly. Tarren explains: "The fact that our Database Administrator worked so closely with Mokum brought benefits to both parties. Mokum had access to detailed information about our systems while we gained knowledge of new Oracle functionality which helps us manage our upgraded systems."
Right at the start of the project, Mokum spent four days enabling an easier method of copying environments. Doing this work - known as rapid cloning - upfront meant the upgrade could subsequently be carried out quickly and efficiently.
The only small challenge that the Council faced during the project is one that is familiar to many organisations. The Council's live database and test database run on the same server and this limits the number of environments that can be created. The existing test environment was already being used to resolve a service request with Oracle so a large number of files had to be compressed to make room for a second environment to test the upgraded software.
Post-implementation support
Once Mokum had completed the upgrade, the Council carried out its own testing to verify that all the requirements had been met. A few issues were uncovered during the testing phase but these were related to the functionality of the Oracle software, not Mokum's work. For example, the Council uses some of the Oracle functionality specifically designed for use in the public sector and there was a form that didn't work properly. All the issues that arose were solved relatively easily with help from Oracle.
Following implementation of the upgraded software, the Council was given access to Mokum's support team for a further four weeks. Knowing that the team was there to help with any queries or glitches provided additional comfort while the new systems settled down in a live environment.
Proven capabilities
"Although this was a straightforward project, it represents the type of work that organisations need help with on a regular basis," says Tarren. " We have worked with two or three different partners as our software has progressed through the Oracle lifecycle and Mokum compares very favourably. The company was clear about what it was going to do and how it was going to do it. The work was completed efficiently, on time and within the fixed price agreed at the start of the project."
The Council was so impressed with the way Mokum carried out the software upgrade and with the calibre of the company's staff, that it is likely to choose Mokum to help with another project based around the financial modules of the Oracle E-Business suite.
"Working with Mokum was a good experience and this was largely down to its capable and helpful people," concludes Tarren.
