IaaS Archives

Despite not being the most popular hosted platform, Oracle Cloud offers some significant benefits to users. The first article in this series outlined five reasons why you should seriously consider making Oracle your platform of choice – and why your competitors are missing out by ignoring it.

But as you might expect, there are more than just five reasons to choose Oracle Cloud. So, here are five more to consider:

1. Cost-optimised platform

Hosted infrastructure (IaaS), platform (PaaS) and software (SaaS) are billed on a pay-as-you-use basis. So, the more storage or CPU cycles you use, the higher your monthly bill.

Thanks to the infinite scalability of the cloud, you dynamically add resources as they are required, and scale back as demand falls. However, the Oracle cloud typically requires fewer compute servers and block-storage volumes to perform the same tasks – so you achieve the maximum price: performance ratio and save money at the same time.

And thanks to a financially backed, end-to-end SLA, you will also receive compensation if performance is ever impaired.

2. AWS-beating performance

AWS is the most popular cloud platform – but that doesn’t make it the best. Having been designed from scratch to support Oracle databases, the Oracle Cloud is not only 66% faster, but also up to 65% cheaper.

And remember – AWS does not offer native support for Oracle RAC, Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse or Autonomous Transaction Processing. Less than ideal if your business operations are reliant on Oracle databases.

3. Enterprise power for SMBs

Oracle’s product line is synonymous with enterprise computing, but the cloud is making the same enormous computing power available to SMBs. With scalability as standard, you can expand application development and adoption as the business grows without sacrificing performance or breaking the budget.

4. Microsoft expansion options

AWS tries to tie users into the Amazon ecosystem, making inter-operability time consuming and difficult. But your business almost certainly relies on a best-of-breed collection of systems from multiple vendors.

In recognition of this reality, Oracle and Microsoft have developed a cloud interoperability partnership. This allows customers to use both Oracle and Azure cloud platforms to build a new hosted best-of-breed platform that leverages the unique benefits of each. And cross-cloud interconnect ensures you can move your data wherever you need it without creating a serious technical headache.

5. Your apps, your way

Building a platform for the future requires maximum flexibility and control. By offering a fully integrated application development platform you can build the applications your business needs.

Oracle AppDev has been designed to support your DevOps strategy and to accelerate development and delivery. And with support for containers and cloud-native applications, you can unleash the full power of the cloud for your systems.

Building for the future

The Oracle Cloud may have a smaller user base, but this creates an opportunity for Oracle database users. Faster and cheaper than AWS, with greater flexibility and inter-operability, if you choose Oracle Cloud allows you to build a platform that accelerates the speed of your business -and to build the data-driven applications you really need.

Making the shift from on-premise technology infrastructure to a cloud-based architecture, specifically infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), is a significant decision and one that should be carefully considered for its impact across an organisation. When procuring infrastructure-as-a-service consider the following:

1. Cloud computing is different
Using IaaS is not just about the location of equipment. Cloud services are priced, bought and used differently, with an on-demand utility model that is designed to maximise spend, but needs a different approach to traditional technology infrastructure.

2. Early planning is essential
All key stakeholders across an organisation should be engaged in the decision to move to a cloud model. There will certainly be huge implications for finance, IT, operations, compliance, from board level down.

3. Flexibility
When planning an IaaS procurement, focus on performance at an application level as your requirement and allow the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) to make recommendations based on their experience and understanding of best practice. Prepare to be flexible and to adapt your expectations of the actual equipment and procedures, according to the advice given.

4. Separate cloud infrastructure and managed services
Keep procurements of IaaS and managed service labour separate if possible. It will make it easier to agree and monitor specific IaaS Service Level Agreements and terms and conditions.

5. Utility pricing
As mentioned, IaaS is priced using a utility model, or pay as you go model which allows you to make maximum efficiency gains. Customised billing and transparent pricing models allow you to continually evaluate and ascertain whether you are receiving best value for money and maximising usage.

6. Industry standards
Look out for CSPs with industry standard accreditations that you can trust. Cyber Essentials, ISO 27000, ISO 9000, SSAE, PCI, GDPR compliance are all good starting points and will save you time in re-evaluation.

7. Share responsibility
A CSP ensures that infrastructure is secure and controlled, but you ensure that you architect it correctly and use secure, controlled applications. Be aware of what is your responsibility and what is the responsibility of the CSP.

8. Ensure cloud data governance
Following on from cybersecurity and data protection, it is your responsibility to ensure cloud data governance controls are in place. Find out what identity and access controls are offered by the CSP and make provisions for additional data protection, encryption and validation tools.

9. Agree commercial item terms
Cloud computing is a commercial item and should be procured under appropriate terms and conditions. Ensure you utilise these to the best effect.

10. Define cloud evaluation criteria
In order to ascertain whether you have achieved your objectives and performance requirements, you should specify your cloud evaluation criteria at the outset. The National Institute of Standards and Technology outlines some benefits of cloud usage and is a good starting point for defining cloud evaluation criteria.

Use this list before you start to plan your IaaS project and it will help you define a successful procurement strategy.

Tag: IaaS