Hi Karlen and all, To be completely transparent about developer discussions.. as of today, I don't know what the future of Oracle support is for DSpace. So far, in all my outreach, *I've had just two responses* -- yours and a private response from a service provider (who doesn't want to be named yet) who *might* be able to help some in mid to late 2022. This lack of response implies to me that very few institutions may be using DSpace + Oracle these days.
So, in all honesty, if I were in your shoes, I'd start to advocate for migrating to PostgreSQL *or* advocate for someone to help DSpace fix its Oracle support. Currently, DSpace doesn't have great Oracle support simply because I've been unable to find anyone to help maintain/support/fix it. I don't have a developer team, and I'm fully reliant on community volunteers and/or service providers to help improve & maintain DSpace. The community developers who used to help us maintain Oracle support left the DSpace community years ago (all moved on to new roles/responsibilities). While the remaining team of volunteers has done their best to keep Oracle support "working", it's obvious we're not great at it (based on Oracle-specific issues like the one you point out in both DSpace 6.x and now 7.x). In other words, all currently active DSpace developers use PostgreSQL. None of our active developers use Oracle or have Oracle support expertise. This means that Oracle-specific bugs take much much longer to resolve, as I have no one available to help resolve them. I wish I had better news for those who still use Oracle. But, without help, I'm not sure whether DSpace can continue to support Oracle going forward. Nonetheless, no final decision has been made as of yet by our DSpace Steering Group. So, if anyone out there is interested in helping, please do reach out. It may be the deciding factor in what comes next for DSpace's Oracle support. Tim On Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 10:40:37 AM UTC-6 Karlen Chase wrote: > Hi, Tim: > > We use Oracle here at the State University of New York at Buffalo (AKA > University at Buffalo) because DSpace infrastructure is managed by central > IT, and they do not support PostgreSQL. We have had DSpace since 2009 and > both our dev and prod sites have always been on Oracle for the DB piece. I > am the current DSpace administrator and work in the University Libraries. > Because of the Flyway migration bug in v.6.x forward, we are stuck on > v.5.10, and we have no in-house developers who can edit the source release > code to allow us to upgrade beyond that. (See the comment I logged > 2018-10-10 on: https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/1954) > > I would very much like to know if I need to begin advocating or pushing > for PostgreSQL via my leadership if this bug is not going to be fixed, as > we are sort of stuck. It is extremely difficult to get central IT to > support something only one unit at the entire university uses, and I was > told we are an Oracle shop and that was our only option for the DB piece. > > In summary, we are a concerned Oracle DSpace stakeholder but have no > in-house developers to offer support for Oracle, which is why we are > beholden to the DSpace source release and are currently stuck on 5.10. > > Thanks very much, > Karlen Chase > Head of Institutional Repository Services > University at Buffalo > > > On Thursday, December 9, 2021 at 3:59:09 PM UTC-5 Tim Donohue wrote: > >> All, >> >> I wanted to let the entire DSpace Community be aware of developer >> discussions regarding our ability to continue supporting Oracle database >> backends in DSpace. >> >> Below, you'll find an email I sent to our DSpace Developer mailing list ( >> [email protected]) in mid-November requesting volunteers to >> help us with Oracle support activities. After 3 weeks, I've yet to find any >> developer volunteers and none of our current core developers or committers >> have Oracle expertise or use Oracle at their institutions. >> >> If your institution currently uses DSpace with an Oracle database backend >> *and* is interested in helping ensure DSpace can continue to support >> Oracle, please get in touch. *Without Oracle volunteers, we may need to >> drop support for Oracle databases and recommend all existing Oracle-based >> sites migrate to PostgreSQL* (by using a third-party migration tool like >> Ora2Pg <https://ora2pg.darold.net/> or similar). >> >> (Additionally, if any of you have successfully migrated a DSpace site >> from Oracle to PostgreSQL, I'd be interested to hear of any tips you may >> have. It may help us start to document Oracle to PostgreSQL migration tips >> for others who wish to do the same.) >> >> Obviously, we'll send out a formal announcement if any Oracle support >> changes are made. >> >> Thanks, >> >> Tim >> >> ------------------------------ >> *From:* Tim Donohue <[email protected]> >> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 17, 2021 5:25 PM >> *To:* DSpace Developers <[email protected]> >> *Subject:* Who uses Oracle with DSpace? Anyone interested in helping >> retain/maintain Oracle support? >> >> All, >> >> I'm curious who on this developer list may use an Oracle database for >> their Production installation of DSpace. >> >> I've been noticing that it has become more difficult to locate any DSpace >> developers with decent Oracle experience to help us debug or fix >> Oracle-related issues (e.g. https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/issues/8008 >> and https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/issues/7958 and testing PR >> https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/8028). >> >> So, if you are using Oracle in Production, and would be interested in >> helping review, debug or test Orace related fixes/issues, please get in >> touch. >> >> If we are unable to find Oracle developer help soon, *I feel we >> must consider recommending (to DSpace Steering) that we stop support for >> Oracle databases* (effective immediately)*. * It's increasingly obvious >> that most DSpace sites do not use Oracle. It's also obvious that we've not >> been successful in testing/stabilizing DSpace upgrades or new features on >> Oracle backends. Plus, as we all know, Oracle databases have never aligned >> with our open-source licensing (in that it requires a paid license to use >> in Production). So, it may be time to admit that Oracle support may no >> longer be necessary or reasonable for DSpace. >> >> Thoughts welcome! Please do get in touch if continued Oracle support is >> of interest to you. >> >> Tim >> >> *--* >> >> *Tim Donohue* >> >> Technical Lead, DSpace >> >> [email protected] >> >> Lyrasis.org <https://www.lyrasis.org/> | DSpace.org <http://dspace.org> >> >> >> -- All messages to this mailing list should adhere to the Code of Conduct: https://www.lyrasis.org/about/Pages/Code-of-Conduct.aspx --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DSpace Community" group. 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