Avis Car Rental – WebLogic Support Strategy Saves $8M Over 3 Years with Third-Party Support
Background
Avis, one of the world’s largest car rental companies, operates across 165 countries with over 10,000 locations and a global fleet of more than 500,000 vehicles.
Headquartered in the United States, Avis relies on a mix of modern and legacy systems to manage reservations, fleet logistics, partner integrations, and customer-facing applications.
Much of this infrastructure was powered by Oracle technology—particularly Oracle WebLogic, which had been licensed under a now-certified Unlimited License Agreement (ULA).
After certifying the ULA and securing perpetual rights to WebLogic and related components, Avis continued to pay Oracle approximately $2.7 million annually for ongoing support.
Avis engaged Redress Compliance to explore how to reduce or eliminate these support costs while maintaining system stability and ensuring license compliance. The result: a strategic move to third-party support that saved $8 million over a three-year period.
Read how to move to Oracle third-party support.
Challenges
With the ULA certified and WebLogic licenses secured, Avis still faced a major obstacle: the continuing cost and rigidity of Oracle’s annual support model.
Key challenges included:
- High Support Costs Post-Certification: Although WebLogic was no longer evolving rapidly, Oracle continued to charge support fees based on the original ULA footprint—regardless of usage or need.
- Minimal Support Value: The systems running WebLogic were stable, had no pressing upgrade plans, and received limited benefit from Oracle’s patching cycle or support portal.
- Limited Flexibility from Oracle: Avis considered negotiating reduced support coverage or partially terminating support for non-critical environments; however, Oracle made it clear that only full support renewals were permitted.
- Complex Decision Landscape: Avis needed clarity across financial, operational, legal, and compliance dimensions before making a major support change—particularly for such a foundational middleware platform.
- Stakeholder Alignment: IT was interested in alternatives, but procurement and finance teams required validation and structure before considering third-party options.
Avis needed to reduce Oracle spend without compromising performance, vendor compliance, or business agility.
How Redress Compliance Helped
Redress Compliance conducted a comprehensive evaluation of support options for Avis’s WebLogic environment, culminating in a successful transition to third-party support.
1. Support Options Evaluation
Redress conducted a structured support assessment that explored three possible paths:
- Re-negotiation with Oracle: We engaged Oracle to request tailored support reductions or revised pricing based on actual usage. Oracle refused to budge.
- Partial Termination: We examined whether specific environments could be carved out of support; however, Oracle confirmed that this was not allowed under the current terms.
- Third-Party Support: We presented Avis with a detailed comparison of third-party support offerings for WebLogic, highlighting security patching, SLA terms, and regulatory compliance.
Redress benchmarked all cost models, weighed business impact, and advised on the legal implications of each option.
2. License and Usage Review
To ensure a defensible transition, Redress performed a license optimization exercise across the certified WebLogic footprint. We:
- Verified entitlement coverage and certified scope
- Mapped current usage to license types and processor counts
- Ensured deployments were aligned with contractual terms to avoid compliance issues later
This gave Avis a clean baseline to operate from—critical when Oracle’s records are often unclear or incomplete.
3. Stakeholder Workshops
Redress hosted joint workshops with IT, procurement, finance, and risk management teams. We presented:
- Side-by-side cost-benefit analysis of Oracle support vs. third-party support
- Real-world examples of successful WebLogic support transitions
- Risk mitigation strategies, including fallback support models and patching roadmaps
These sessions were key to aligning internal decision-makers and clearing the path for executive sign-off.
4. Third-Party Support Transition
Once the decision was made, Redress helped:
- Select a third-party support provider with experience supporting WebLogic at scale.
- Negotiate favorable terms and onboarding timelines
- Document entitlement and deployment evidence to withstand any future Oracle inquiry
- Design governance processes to monitor compliance and usage going forward
The transition was phased and non-disruptive. Internal users experienced no impact, while support responsiveness improved in some areas.
Outcome and Impact
The decision to move WebLogic support to a trusted third-party provider generated significant ROI:
- $2.7M saved annually, totaling $8 million over three years
- 100% compliance preserved, with clear entitlement documentation
- No service degradation, with equal or better SLAs through the new provider
- Operational control retained, allowing Avis to manage upgrades and versioning on its terms
- No further Oracle negotiation cycles, removing annual vendor pressure, and reducing procurement overhead
Avis turned a rigid, costly support obligation into a flexible, cost-efficient model—without sacrificing control or compliance.
Client Quote
“We were paying Oracle millions each year for support that barely changed our day-to-day. Redress Compliance helped us rethink that entire model. They provided us with options, clarity, and confidence—and the switch to third-party support for WebLogic is saving us $8 million over the next three years. It’s one of the best decisions we’ve made in IT cost management.”
— Head of Global IT Procurement, Avis Budget Group
Call-to-Action
Still paying full Oracle support for WebLogic or other middleware you rarely touch? Redress Compliance helps enterprises cut support costs safely and strategically—with no loss of performance or compliance.
Book your Oracle middleware support review today.
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