ValueCentric Uses Oracle® Database and Oracle Unbreakable Linux to Power Software as a Service Offering for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Oracle today announced that ValueCentric, LLC, a data management and performance analytics company providing on-demand services to the pharmaceutical industry, is using Oracle® Database running on Oracle Enterprise Linux, backed by the Oracle Unbreakable Linux support program, to support the company’s software as a service (SaaS) offering. The company migrated to Oracle Database from MySQL to improve the performance, availability, scalability, and security of its flagship data analysis product, ValueTrak.

Founded in 2002 as a consultancy to the pharmaceutical industry, ValueCentric quickly recognized the need for a software solution to address an industry shift toward a fee-for-service business model, in which pharmaceutical manufacturers pay distributors for their distribution services and performance in key areas such as maintaining certain inventory days on hand (DOH) and customer service levels. In response to the new business model shift and the dramatic increase in data exchange between all entities in the industry, ValueCentric developed the ValueTrak Platform. ValueTrak aggregates high volumes of daily data and analyzes it using a proprietary and customizable monitoring, reporting and scorecarding methodology to help manufacturers optimize their supply chains and improve business decisions. ValueCentric built its first version of ValueTrak on MySQL. However, as the company expanded to support global leaders such as AstraZeneca, Roche, and P&G Pharmaceuticals, ValueCentric became concerned about MySQL’s ability to keep pace with the data growth and quality of service requirements of its customers.

“As our customer base expanded and the amount of data we were managing grew, it became apparent that down the road it wouldn’t be possible for us to maintain the same level of performance,” said Dave Flood, Vice President Information Services, ValueCentric. “The MySQL database became a potential obstacle to our continued success, and we needed to migrate to a solution that enabled a more predictable and higher performance level.”

In seeking a replacement for its MySQL database, ValueCentric had very specific guidelines around performance, scalability, availability and security. Oracle exceeded each of the requirements by a significant margin, and that, combined with Oracle’s support and flexibility ultimately led to the selection of Oracle Database and Oracle Enterprise Linux as the underlying infrastructure for the ValueTrak Platform.

“The Oracle team was extremely diligent in providing resources to make sure our questions were answered and to put us in a position where we were able to test the product fully to make sure our go-live was a complete success,” said John LoFaso, Director-Technical Operations, ValueCentric. “Since we were evaluating our Linux distribution at the same time we were reviewing the database, it made sense to tie everything together. It was an easy transition, and with respect to the operating system, the conversion was virtually flawless.”

Helping Reduce Risk and Complexity in the SaaS Environment
In addition to better performance and scalability, ValueCentric is benefiting from the high availability features of Oracle Data Guard. Oracle Data Guard enables ValueCentric to benefit from fast incremental backups while providing high availability and disaster protection for both planned and unplanned outages. In addition, Oracle Enterprise Manager gives ValueCentric visibility across its systems and networks, allowing it to automate critical management activities, gain insight into its application’s performance and improve service levels for its customers.

“Operating in a SaaS model and being the industry leader for data management and performance analytics, our customers expect continuous uptime and availability of the ValueTrak Platform to help meet their business goals,” said Dave Janca, Founder & CEO, ValueCentric. “Our prior environment made it increasingly difficult to support this requirement and was a significant obstacle to our ability to fulfill the obligations of a SAS 70 compliant data center. With Oracle Data Guard, we have greatly improved the disaster recovery functionality we require with little additional cost or equipment required to support it.”

“An increasing number of ISV’s, like ValueCentric, are turning to Oracle software to build, deploy and manage business-critical applications,” said William Hardie, vice president, Database Product Marketing, Oracle. “Oracle Database, Oracle Enterprise Linux and the enterprise-quality Oracle Unbreakable Linux support program, enable growing companies like ValueCentric to reduce the total cost of ownership for their technology solutions, improve system performance and increase operational efficiency with a single point of contact.”

For more information on Oracle Database, including the latest release—Oracle Database 11g, go to: http://www.oracle.com/database.

The Oracle Unbreakable Linux support program delivers enterprise-class support for Linux with premier backports, lifetime support, comprehensive Linux server lifecycle management, full indemnification, extensive testing and more, all while allowing a significantly lower cost of support for users. For more information please visit: http://www.oracle.com/linux.

About ValueCentric
ValueCentric, LLC® is the leading provider of on-demand data management and performance analytics to the pharmaceutical industry. Through its secure, Sarbanes-Oxley compliant hosted data and services platform, ValueTrak®, the company analyzes manufacturers sales, inventory, service levels and supply chain data. Serving world-class customers such as AstraZeneca, P&G Pharmaceuticals and Johnson & Johnson, ValueCentric’s best-in-class technology strengthens and enhances the profitability of relationships between suppliers and the finished goods forward participants in their supply chain. To learn more, please visit www.valuecentric.com.

About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world’s largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com.



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