Why Cloud?
It’s a well-publicised fact that cloud adoption is rising at a speedy rate, but why? Essentially, there are three main reasons customers adopt cloud. Firstly, they are looking at ways of reducing the cost and complexity of their on-premises infrastructure. Secondly they would like to accelerate IT delivery by using the cloud for specific projects and finally, they want to create versatile business models to gain a competition edge or disrupt the market.
We’ve all heard of the main public cloud providers, but Oracle Cloud is gaining popularity amongst enterprise customers for a number of reasons.
Why Oracle Cloud?
Oracle Cloud is a next-generation public cloud architected that has been designed specifically to run enterprise applications and databases. It is as elastic and flexible as the first-generation public clouds, but allows additional control, security, performance and predictability which rival those of an on premises deployment. In fact, alongside public cloud and hybrid cloud deployments, Oracle also offers an option called Oracle Cloud at Customer which allows customers to deploy Oracle cloud as a private cloud behind their own firewall.
Oracle’s native toolset enables developers to build their own next-generation, cloud native and mobile apps in the cloud, and allow them to run traditional enterprise apps alongside cloud native apps. Oracle cloud users can strip right back to the bare metal infrastructure to install the exact operating systems, middleware and databases they need.
The toolset includes migration tools to move existing apps to the cloud without the need to rearchitect the apps, even those that have been customised. With any migration we perform though, skilled consultants from WTL and Oracle are on hand for trickier applications.
High Performance
Customers with high performance computing workloads like crash tests, real time analytics, modelling insurance risks or testing new manufacturing materials can rest easy that Oracle cloud can handle the workloads. It offers powerful CPU options, massive memory capabilities and dense storage capacity.
High bandwidth, low latency networks connect servers to file, block and object storage resources making Oracle ideal for customers who need the highest levels of performance. In fact, it can perform up to 5 million I/O operations per second for the most demanding tasks.
But where could Oracle cloud be used to best effect? For customers looking for a DevTest cloud environment, Oracle cloud allows them to test new app versions, validate security patches and test cloud native architectures and features.
For customers using the cloud for production applications, the single tenant, high performance bare metal servers are ideal for high performance computing and are highly available because of the load balancing, real application clustering and multiple availability domains.
Some customers use Oracle cloud for their backup and DR processes, because of its built-in storage resiliency, availability and security and automated backup features.
Finally, Oracle is ideal for extending a serviceable on premises environment to the cloud, without decommissioning the legacy equipment. On premises infrastructure can be connect to the new cloud infrastructure with a VPN or FastConnect, for seamless movement between the two.
Security
With the use of cloud in enterprise computing comes much concern about security, so this is a key area of concern for Oracle. Users access Oracle cloud resources via Oracle Identity and Access Management technology which allows role-based access controls and granular allocation and auditing features. Access to specific cloud compartments can be granted per person, per project or per group, as needed for additional security.
The whole cloud infrastructure is built with security embedded at every level, and the whole environment is monitored and protected by a 24/7 network operation centre staffed by skilled security professionals.
All great features, but how is it different to first generation cloud vendor solutions? Oracle Cloud moves the virtualisation layer to the physical network, utilising what’s known as off box virtualisation and creating single tenant servers. Customers use a virtual cloud network which is isolated from other customers for added security.
Oracle cloud is not just great for Oracle applications, although of course it IS fully optimised to run Oracle enterprise databases and applications, it is ideal for any business running any mixed workloads, regardless of throughput or security requirements.
Useful Links
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Purpose-Built for the Enterprise