Oracle Announces Unprecedented Data Processing Abilities

Oracle (News - Alert) has announced the ability to generate 500,000 customer bills and process more than one billion records, all within an eight-hour nightly window.

Designed according to real business scenarios, the test processed data reported from 10 million smart meters, each reporting nearly 100 reads per day, which is representative of the daily processing needs for a typical utility service provider. With the help of Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (30 billion meter readings) and a six-month billing history on Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing (60 million bills), the test used one month of historical meter data. The test billed each account using three different rates (simulating “peak,” “shoulder” and “off-peak” rates), the company stated in a press release.

“New technologies and business processes are dramatically increasing the volume of data utilities handle during the meter-to-cash process. This test – the only one of its kind to date – proves that Oracle's complete, integrated mission-critical software solutions running on Oracle’s engineered systems help utilities correctly size their data warehouses to process the high volumes of consumption data generated by smart meters,” said Rodger Smith, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities.

Integrated using Oracle Application Integration Architecture, Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management and Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway (News - Alert) are running on Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud X2-2. Offering a volume level typical for a large utility, the test data was a subset extracted from 30 billion interval meter reads.

Recently, the company announced the $1.5 billion purchase of the customer service program provider RightNow. Oracle has issued a bit of a caveat, claiming that part of the financial woes were really just about when contracts were getting signed. Safra Catz, Oracle’s CFO says that many of the companies that Oracle did business with in the second quarter did not sign official contracts until the very end of the quarter.

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