LogicalTech eyes growth in Oracle 11g v2 upgrades

LogicalTech expected over half of its Oracle customer base would shift to the 11g database version two (11.2) in the next year.

The company had tested 11g database version two underpinning an application it designed to move transactions from point-of-sale systems across to wholesalers and into Oracle Financials.

LogicalTech joined the local beta test program in June and conducted performance benchmarks on the application running on versions 10.2 and 11.2 of the Oracle database, according to general manager Martin Power.

He believed reduced maintenance costs, security and performance improvements, and new features such as automatic storage management (ASM) would prove attractive to customers.

Some database owners were renowned for being reticent to upgrade to the latest versions of underlying databases in case it introduced instability issues.

But Power said his customers "weren't opposed to updating their databases".

"More often than not customers are locked into [using] a particular database version because the software that sits in front or on top hasn't been certified to work with it," Power said.

"Oracle 11.2 [in our experience] is extremely stable and very production ready. I don't know that customers would be taking a greater risk using 11.2 than any other versions sitting out there.

"Our experience of the upgrade process was extremely clean and easier to complete than versions in the past."

Power believed about 10 percent of his customer base would move to the new version in the next three to six months.

"Where they can, we would expect 50 to 60 percent of clients to move across in the next 12 months," he said.

Power was unable to provide details on the margins that partners could expect from providing the upgrade.

This was because LogicalTech operated on contracts that bound them to keep the database within the Oracle's current release framework.