Case Study: Wageningen University & Research Centre cuts database management from 6 hours to 15 minutes with Oracle Database 12c

Wageningen University & Research Centre Reduces Database Management Requirements from 6 Hours to 15 Minutes

Wageningen University & Research Centre, a leading agricultural and environmental research institution with 6,500 staff and 10,000 students, needed a more robust, flexible, and scalable database architecture to support finance, student administration, and researcher services. The university aimed to lower implementation and maintenance costs, simplify its IT stack, reduce the number of servers and carbon footprint, and free IT staff for strategic tasks.

By migrating to Oracle Database 12c with Oracle Multitenant and running a private database cloud, Wageningen UR consolidated and shared administrative and research data more efficiently, cut full-cycle patch management from 6 hours to 15 minutes, achieved 40x faster PDB rollout and 20x faster patching, and reduced CO2 emissions by 15% (with further reductions expected). The move lowered total cost of ownership, improved resource utilization, and freed IT teams to focus on self-service, lifecycle management, and advanced research support.

Wageningen University & Research Centre

Jack Groot

Senior Database Administrator