generations-network-case-study[1]

Oracle Customer Case Study The Generations Network Establishes Strong Roots with On Demand Solutions The Generations Network, Inc. Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Published December 2007 Provo, Utah www.tgn.com Industry: High Technology Annual Revenue: US$150 million Employees: More than 600 Oracle Products & Services: Oracle On Demand Oracle Financials Oracle iProcurement Oracle Internet Expenses Oracle Project Costing Oracle Order Management Oracle Inventory Oracle XML Gateway Oracle Fusion Middleware Oracle BPEL Process Manager Oracle XML Publisher Oracle Discoverer “We believe that Oracle On Demand is the best outsourcing solution in the market today. We get extremely good service and have uptime of more than 99.95%. As important, Oracle is always up on the latest and greatest technology.” – Gordon Atkin, Senior Manager of Financial Systems, The Generations Network, Inc. The Generations Network, Inc., previously known as MyFamily.com, Inc., is in the business of connecting families across distance and time. The company, which operates 10 Web sites, including Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com helps individuals discover their roots, document their heritage, and sustain their family legacy. To help its more than 900,000 subscribers make connections with the past, the company has looked to the future, creating a scalable and sophisticated IT infrastructure that is highly responsive to customers and company employees, alike. The Generations Network selected Oracle E-Business Suite applications for its enterprise application foundation, including Oracle Financials, Oracle iProcurement, Oracle Internet Expenses, Oracle Project Costing, Oracle Order Management, Oracle Inventory, Oracle XML Gateway, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle XML Publisher, and Oracle Discoverer. With limited IT staffing resources and rigorous reliability and performance requirements, the company looked carefully at its IT management options, considering an on-premise implementation as well as several hosted infrastructure providers. “Our business is largely dependent on credit card transactions, so our IT infrastructure needs to be high performing and available 24/7,” said Gordon Atkin, senior manager of Financial Systems for The Generations Network. “To ensure this level of service, we knew that we needed specialized resources skilled in managing an Oracle enterprise environment. Outsourcing appeared to be the best solution for our organization. Because Oracle knows Oracle best, we knew that we could rely on them to keep us up and running all the time.” Oracle Customer Case Study Key Benefits: 􀂃 Delivered 99.95% availability of enterprise applications to enable high levels of customer service and seamless cash flow 􀂃 Streamlined IT management, allowing the company to deal with a single IT vendor 􀂃 Eliminated the need to build out the company’s in-house IT resources with highly specialized resources 􀂃 Ensured predictable IT management costs 􀂃 Ensured timely maintenance and access to new technology developments Ensuring Seamless Service and Cash Flow Consumers making purchases on the Web have come to expect instant turnaround on transactions. Customers of The Generations Network are no different. They want their subscriptions processed instantly, allowing them to begin their research immediately. Without this capability, the company risks losing customers to other sites and research options. Since The Generations Network primarily relies on credit card transactions, it must have absolute confidence in the reliability and seamlessness of its transaction processing and order-to-cash processes and systems. Oracle On Demand delivers on this requirement. “With Oracle On Demand and the near 100% system availability it provides, we can deliver the level of service our customers demand as they come onto our Web sites and subscribe to our services,” Atkin said. “They can quickly get onto our services and get access to the records they need, providing a seamless and pleasant customer experience.” From a cash-flow perspective, high levels of reliability and seamless integration ensure that transactions are recorded and processed immediately, driving a healthy cash flow. Oracle On Demand―which delivers a secure and well-maintained infrastructure―also plays an important role in helping the company meet Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards and requirements. Managing Limited IT Resources IT teams at many rapidly growing small-to-medium-sized businesses find themselves stretched to manage increasingly complex IT environments, while having the bandwidth to focus on forward-looking initiatives. The Generations Network faced this exact situation. It found that it did not have the resources and specialized knowledge needed to manage its expanding applications infrastructure. The IT team carefully weighed the costs of acquiring these additional resources versus an external provider. A hosting and software management solution emerged as the logical choice. “Oracle is extremely beneficial to a small business like ours because we didn’t have to build out our IT support infrastructure―which would have been an expensive Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Published December 2007 Oracle Customer Case Study “With Oracle On Demand, the cash outlay is so much less and the payback period is so rapid that it just makes perfect sense for small companies to go with a partner like Oracle.” Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Published December 2007 Gordon Atkin Senior Manager of Financial Systems The Generations Network proposition,” Atkin said. “With Oracle On Demand, the cash outlay is so much less and the payback period is so rapid that it just makes perfect sense for small companies to go with a partner like Oracle.” Seeking Simplicity and Value Add A single-vendor approach was important to The Generations Network when choosing a hosting partner. “Oracle On Demand offered the expertise and services that that we required, was competitive in terms of pricing, and allowed us to deal with a single vendor for our applications, support, software management, and hosting,” Atkin said. “This approach would help us ensure greater simplicity in managing our overall environment—a value that’s hard to beat. If we would have gone with another vendor, we would have had to work through issues by coordinating both the third party provider and Oracle Support―adding another layer of complexity.” The Generations Network can log one issue with Oracle On Demand, and Oracle On Demand coordinates with Oracle Support and Oracle Development, if needed. Atkin and his team only have to work with one contact person and Oracle On Demand handles the rest, freeing Atkin and his team to address other initiatives. In addition to simplicity, Oracle brings unique value add capabilities to The Generations Network, according to Atkin. “With Oracle On Demand, software is no longer a product, but a service offering from Oracle,” Atkin explained. “Oracle On Demand is not simply reactive in delivering what we want, they’re proactive in helping us identify how we can get the best value out of our application environment, and from the services standpoint with Oracle On Demand. It’s comforting to have a partner looking out for us.” Why Oracle? Once The Generations Network decided to use a hosted implementation, it considered several leading providers in the market. Cost was an important factor, but not the only one, according to Atkin. Ultimately, the company’s confidence in Oracle’s ability to best manage its own applications and technology drove the decision. Oracle Customer Case Study “At the time, there were hosting offerings at a lower price than Oracle On Demand,” Atkin said. “More important to us was Oracle’s inherent expertise in running and managing its own applications as well as the extra level of service that we would get with Oracle On Demand. The simplicity of dealing with a single vendor for both applications and hosting was also very appealing.” Implementation Process The Generations Network migrated its Oracle infrastructure to Oracle On Demand in 3 months (6 weeks contract negotiations, 4 weeks planning, 2 weeks implementation and migration) and saw immediate benefits. Today, the company has more than 350 users on its Oracle applications infrastructure. The company manages between 10,000 and 20,000 order transactions each day, which adds 200 gigabytes of data to its data infrastructure annually. The company has over 1 terabytes of data in its production environment. Overall, Oracle On Demand manages more than 4.5 terabytes of data across The Generations Network’s test, development, and production environments. “With Oracle On Demand, we rarely have a performance issue. If we do, Oracle is on top of it quickly, getting it right,” Atkin said. “From a scalability perspective, there is no question that Oracle On Demand can continue to support our growth moving forward.” The Generations Network, Inc., previously known as MyFamily.com, Inc., is committed to connecting families across time and distance. Through its Web sites, including MyFamily.com and Ancestry.com, it provides services and products to help individuals discover and document their heritage. Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Published December 2007