Daniel Benad (Rimini Street)
Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) has moved to Rimini Street for its Oracle support and away from the vendor, citing costly upgrades and the need for ongoing stability.
This will enable MIT to maintain its current stable version of Oracle for its student management and finance systems for up to fifteen years without requiring an upgrade, according to the third-party services provider.
MIT’s applications have been flagged as reaching end of life in 2023, with Rimini Street claiming the Institute would face “costly” upgrades if it was to continue its support through the vendor.
“We were in a bind. We knew the software vendor’s support for each Oracle application would cease next year, but we wanted to continue using our current applications,” said Gerald Masters, head of technology at MIT.
“Our current Oracle version was stable and there was no reason for us to move off it other than Oracle saying ‘we had to’.”
In addition, MIT is undertaking an institution-wide transition to a deadline and as such waiting for patches and updates that have the potential to take down systems for days at a time would have affected other internal work, Masters claimed.
“Having Rimini Street support there ensures our mission-critical systems are online and working smoothly, so we’re pleased to know Rimini Street has us covered,” he said.
Meanwhile, under Rimini Street, MIT is able to stay on its current version and avoid upgrades “at great expense, that we didn’t want or need”.
“Rimini Street will provide support for our existing system while giving us the flexibility to decide our next steps in our IT roadmap without pressure,” Masters added. “This was a key reason why we made the shift as it really helps us out of a tough situation with a great solution.”
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Through the third-party service provider, MIT has access to a primary support engineer with a team of functional and technical engineers, as well as Rimini Street’s Service Level Agreement of 10-minute response times for critical priority 1 cases.
It also provided upfront information, a dedicated project manager and continual progress updates.
Daniel Benad, group vice president and regional general managed of Oceania for Rimini Street, said MIT's situation of not wanting to upgrade because they do not require it occurs regularly among organisations.
“MIT proves that you can avoid both upgrades and disruptions by turning to Rimini Street support and gaining years of application and technology roadmap flexibility,” he added.
Rimini Street launched in New Zealand in November 2018.
