The Perpetual Unlimited License Agreement (PULA) was a landmark step in strengthening the relationship between HDFC Bank and Oracle. Find out more.

Business context

In 2018, the routine of engaging in standard license agreements proved to be a hindrance to HDFC Bank, particularly in light of their ambition to achieve rapid scalability. To overcome this challenge, they engaged in a Perpetual Unlimited License Agreement (PULA) with Oracle as testament of trust between the two partners.

Solution deployed

The new perpetual agreement included the enterprise edition of Oracle Database along with crucial middleware, content management, and data integration products. By closely collaborating throughout the process, Oracle and HDFC Bank tailored their respective resources and their needs to create a mutually beneficial framework. Thus, HDFC Bank became the very first PULA customer for Oracle in India in May 2018.

Benefits

After its initial launch, the implementation helped the bank cement its technological superiority and security among its competitors. The benefits were comprehensive and far reaching, with five key areas of improvement:

• Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): Significantly lower overall cost of ownership from the PULA model vis-a-vis the ULA renewal model every few years
• Cost predictability (till perpetuity): The running cost of Oracle Database has been decoupled from the growth of the bank along with 100% cost predictability
• Standardisation benefits: Standardization efforts to move all their database workloads onto the best-in-class Oracle Database technologies at no additional cost
• Contractual and procurement simplicity: Unrestricted right to deploy and use products within the current scope significantly drives simplicity and agility in procurement and governance
• Flexibility in deployment models (on-premises or cloud): HDFC Bank can now deploy these unlimited licenses across any environment including public clouds– further eliminating any governance or cost overheads

The PULA provided scalability at terms that were beneficial for both the Bank and Oracle on their journey towards Digital 2.0.