1. Oracle Case Study DRAFT – California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Global Customer References Program
Prepared for review and approval by California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation on
April 10, 2013
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation – Oracle Success Story: Page 1 of 4
Title – California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Boosts System Performance,
Avoids Nearly $2 Million in Technology Costs with Engineered System
CUSTOMER AND PARTNER INFORMATION
Customer Name – California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Customer Budget – US$8.8 billion
Oracle Solution – Engineered Systems
Customer Quote – "Oracle Exadata presented an ideal solution for our critical inmate, juvenile,
and parolee data and management systems. We achieved significant performance gains—
including the ability to run reports up to 70% faster—and ensured system redundancy. We also
consolidated servers, reduced the number of Oracle licenses needed for legacy applications, and
transferred those licenses to another initiative, reducing costs as well as avoiding the need to
purchase an additional $1.5 million in technology licenses.” – Joe Panora, Director, Enterprise
Information Services, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Go to Market Products -
Oracle Exadata Database Machine
Oracle Database Appliance
Oracle Advanced Customer Support Services
Oracle Real Application Testing
Industry – Public Sector
Region – NA
Country – United States
Language – English
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
Introduction –
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) works to improve public
safety through evidence-based crime prevention and recidivism reduction strategies and
programs. It is one of the largest organizations in the country for offender management—
operating 33 adult institutions and three juvenile facilities, where it also provides general
education, mental health, vocational education, and substance abuse programs and services for
approximately 132,500 inmates. In addition, CDCR supervises approximately 55,000 parolees.
Like many public sector organizations, CDCR has faced budget constraints in recent years and
continually looks for opportunities to optimize use of available resources―including in its IT
department. In 2012, the department migrated several databases that support business-critical
applications, including its parolee management system, to Oracle Exadata Database Machine.
With the move, CDCR significantly improved availability and performance of applications that
must be available around the clock. As a result, it avoided $400,000 in annual support costs due
to license and server consolidation. CDCR also avoided the need to purchase an additional $1.5
million in technology licenses to support a separate initiative.
2. Oracle Case Study DRAFT – California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Global Customer References Program
Prepared for review and approval by California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation on
April 10, 2013
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation – Oracle Success Story: Page 2 of 4
Building a New Foundation
In 2012, as CDCR planned to migrate some of its applications from its own computer room to a
centralized data center as part of a statewide consolidation initiative, it reevaluated its enterprise
application environment, including its database and hardware requirements.
Hardware upgrades were imperative as many of the department’s servers supporting key
applications were at end of life. In addition, the department also faced the prospect of increased
maintenance costs.
After careful consideration, CDCR migrated databases that support seven of its business-critical
applications, including systems that track information on inmate populations and parolees and
share information with local law enforcement, to Oracle Exadata Database Machine, an
engineered solution that provides optimized servers, storage, and database software in a single
system. The databases migrated include those that support the Lifer Scheduling and Tracking
System (LSTS), Revocation Scheduling and Tracking System, Juvenile Scheduling and Track
System, Disability and Effective Communication System, Field Information System, and the
Law Enforcement Automated Data System (LEADS), which shares information on parolees with
local law enforcement personnel and must support more than 60,000 users. Most recently, CDCR
migrated its CalParole parolee management system, one of its largest and most critical
applications, to Oracle Exadata.
With Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 Quarter Rack, CDCR has consolidated five
databases and 12 servers onto a single machine, each with its own instance. As a result, CDCR
avoided $400,000 in annual license support costs. As important, since CDCR requires fewer
Oracle Database licenses with Oracle Exadata, it was able to transfer the legacy licenses no
longer required to its Business Information System program (an enterprise resource planning
solution), which is migrating to Oracle Database. In doing so, CDCR avoided the need to
purchase $1.5 million of additional technology licenses. The department expects to achieve full
return on its investment in two years.
A Win-Win Solution
The benefits that Oracle Exadata delivers to CDCR extend far beyond financial savings. For
example, the department has gained a new level of hardware stability for its critical applications,
enabling 24/7 availability for systems such as LEADS, on which state law enforcement officials
depend to help ensure public safety. Running two nodes on Oracle Exadata Database Machine,
CDCR ensures redundancy and immediate failover for databases that support critical
applications. Previously, when a database failed, it required CDCR IT personnel intervention to
restore the system. Today, failover is automatic, ensuring availability and enabling the IT
personnel to focus on other mission priorities.
Application performance has also improved analyst efficiency. For instance, CDCR had to limit
LSTS reports to 90-day increments to avoid timing out the legacy system. Today, it can run
LSTS reports for any time increment with a single query. A critical data extract job that runs
every 20 minutes and transfers updated information from CalParole to LEADS runs 70% faster.
3. Oracle Case Study DRAFT – California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Global Customer References Program
Prepared for review and approval by California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation on
April 10, 2013
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation – Oracle Success Story: Page 3 of 4
On average, CDCR now completes reports involving large data extractions 100% faster than
with the legacy environment, while some reports show improvements above and beyond that
metric.
Oracle Exadata delivers the scalability that CDCR requires to support applications that have tens
of thousands of users, such as LEADS. The engineered system also ensures availability through
pre-built and self-deploying active-active clustering technology, via Oracle Real Application
Clusters. Further, the recommended hardware configuration provides 30% more computing
power than the other solutions that CDCR considered, providing room for growth.
Streamlined Maintenance
CDCR has significantly streamlined system maintenance with Oracle Exadata. It can now
complete database upgrades much faster, saving weeks of effort because it only needs to upgrade
a database once, as opposed to multiple times. It experiences similar efficiency gains for system
patching, as one pre-tested patch set is applied to patch all components of the Oracle Exadata.
In addition, IT staff members find it easier to diagnose the source of performance issues. CDCR
is using Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c, a feature of Oracle Exadata, to effectively manage and
troubleshoot issues in its Oracle Exadata environment. “Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c is a
powerful tool. We can manage our entire environment from a single pane of glass— including
hardware, databases, storage, and the network. It significantly accelerates problem identification
and resolution,” said Davood Ghods, deputy director, Enterprise Information System, California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
With Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM), a feature of Oracle Exadata, CDCR
streamlines storage management, increases storage utilization and agility, and ensures
predictable performance, availability, and scalability.
Customer Name – California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Customer URL – www.cdcr.ca.gov
Customer Headquarters – Sacramento, CA
Industry – Public Sector
Employees – 50,000
Challenges –
Ensure high availability and performance of important inmate and parolee data and
management systems to protect public safety and ensure due process
Optimize IT budgets, staff resources, and assets, including software licenses
Ensure database scalability to support tens of thousands of system users across the state
Solution –
Deployed Oracle Exadata Database Machine and created a highly reliable, scalable, and
cost-effective data infrastructure to support many of the department’s most critical
applications, including the state’s parolee management system and an application that
shares information on parolees with law enforcement organizations across the state
4. Oracle Case Study DRAFT – California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Global Customer References Program
Prepared for review and approval by California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation on
April 10, 2013
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation – Oracle Success Story: Page 4 of 4
Accelerated report creation, running most reports 100% faster than with the legacy
environment
Avoided $400,000 in annual support costs thanks to license and server consolidation, and
avoided $1.5 million in additional technology spend to support a separate initiative
Provided a modern infrastructure that supports the state’s data center consolidation
initiatives
Why Oracle – “Oracle Exadata provided a superior value proposition. It delivered the scalability
and performance we require to support our inmate and parolee management and information
systems, and provides powerful pre-built systems management and troubleshooting capabilities.
We also have a single source for hardware, software, and storage, and a single point of
accountability with Oracle—driving faster issue resolution,” Ghods said.
Implementation Process – Oracle helped the department to deploy Oracle Exadata in just three
days and provided training and knowledge transfer. CDCR worked with Oracle Advanced
Customer Support Services throughout the Oracle Exadata planning and implementation process.
CDCR created new Oracle Database 11g databases on the Oracle Exadata Database Machine and
migrated the data from the existing Oracle Database 10g databases using the Oracle Data Pump
utility.
CDCR began its initiative in August 2012 and migrated its first application to Oracle Exadata in
October 2012. It transferred its largest application, CalParole, in February 2013.
“We were able to partner with Oracle and create a real ‘win-win’ scenario by leveraging our
existing Oracle investment to achieve modernization while reducing our IT total cost of
ownership, improving performance, sustainability, and realizing IT Green benefits,” said Joe
Panora, director, Enterprise Information Services, California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation.