Oracle, which has been the absolute powerhouse within South Korea’s DBMS (Database Management System) market, has started to lose its power. While Oracle, which has occupied the majority of the DBMS market, has been stagnant lately, other DBMS companies such as TmaxData (Tibero), AWS (Aurora DB), and Cubrid are working on obtaining major public projects.
While there is no news that Oracle has obtained or renewed a large-scale DBMS project, there have been frequent news about other companies replacing one’s DBMS with their DBMS. There are now more selections companies as competitive edge of an open-source DB has been proved and the paradigm within the software (SW) market is now based on cloud DBMS. Cloud DBMS is more competitive from aspects of expandability and flexibility while open-source DBMS is more competitive from an aspect of cost.
Oracle’s high DB maintenance rate, which is high as 22%, is also a cause of diversification within the market. R2B Solution, Micro Focus, and EDB, MariaDB, and MongoDB actually criticize the high cost of Oracle’s DBMS. They are making necessary moves to replace Oracle’s DBMS with their DBMS.
◊AWS showing strength in cloud DBMS
AWS, which is leading IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) markets in South Korea and foreign countries is also active within South Korea’s DBMS market. It has proved its competitive edge as Korean Air and Doosan Group decided to change their IT infrastructures to AWS Cloud in 2018 and 2019 respectively. There is a high chance that both of them will adopt AWS’ DBMS such as Aurora DB.
AWS also provides other databases (DB) in addition to Aurora DB that are specialized for using particular apps. Some of these DBs include nonrelational DB, DW (Data Warehouse) for analysis, in-memory data store for caching and real-time workload, graph DB for establishing an app with data that has high interconnectivity, time series DB for measuring a change depending on time, and ledger DB.
AWS has secured various customers ranging from major corporations such as Samsung, SK, LG, and Hyundai to startups. Nike, NASDAQ, Netflix, Dow Jones, Snapchat, Autodesk, Philips, Capital One, and UN have also adopted AWS DBMS.

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◊Open source DBMS companies challenge Oracle
South Korean and foreign open source DBMS companies are also challenge Oracle. Cubrid, which is a South Korean open source DBMS company, has been increasing the supply of CubridDB to public cloud sectors this year. MariaDB and MongoDB that have recently set up their South Korean branches are also strengthening their businesses to target areas of the market that are occupied by Oracle.
Cubrid supplied CubridDB to Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), Incheon International Airport Corporation, and Korea Communications Agency. NIA, which is the first public agency to push for complete transformation to cloud, is also using CubridDB for Smart Work System and e-Government Service Collaboration System.
MariaDB’s focus is on a technology that can easily transform Oracle DB into an open source DB. CTO of MariaDB has led the development of ‘MySQL’ that is the open source version of Oracle DB. MongoDB is planning to expand its market shares by emphasizing the fact that its DB is optimized for using and storing data. 140 South Korean companies such as Naver, Kakao, and NHN are currently using MongoDB.
There is also an alliance that is comprised of South Korean and foreign software companies to target areas of South Korea’s DBMS market occupied by Oracle. R2B Solution, Micro Focus, and EDB recently signed a business agreement and announced its plan to target the DBMS market. They are planning to replace Oracle’s solutions with theirs within areas such as DBMS, analytical DB, and real-time replication.
◊Oracle to counterattack with autonomous database
Oracle has also announced its plan to counterattack by becoming a cloud company. It has launched ADW (Autonomous Data Warehouse) that can perform management, security patch, and restoration autonomously and ATP (Autonomous Transaction Process). Around May when Oracle’s Seoul region opened, it secured more than 100 customers such as KEB Hana Bank and SK Store as their customers for autonomous DB.
At ‘Oracle Open World 2019’, which was held in San Francisco last month, Oracle announced the expansion of its autonomous DB lineup. It has added ‘Autonomous DB Dedicated’ that supports private autonomous cloud environment within a company’s data center. It has also added ‘Automatic Indexing’ and ‘APEX on Autonomous DB’.
Oracle has started a free service for cloud developers in order to expand its influence on autonomous DB. It provides every autonomous DB function so it can be used for practice and education purposes. Size of the service that is provided for free is 10CPU 20GB and this is enough for simple application development and data analysis and operation of personal homepage.
Staff Reporter Park, Jongjin | truth@etnews.com