Oracle Cloud Archives - Page 2 of 2

There is no doubt that the use of cloud technology is no longer just about cost and capacity, or cheap servers and storage. Analysts Forrester said it’s about using the best platform to turn innovative ideas into software quickly. Taking innovation to market fast is what sets businesses apart from their competitors, and the cloud is the best way to do that. It’s no longer a destination, it is an operating model. Public cloud usage is growing in 2019, while private cloud use declined, according to Flexera’s annual State of the Cloud* report, the largest survey on the use of cloud infrastructure which focuses on cloud buyers and users. In addition to the public cloud adoption rates rising, enterprise organisations are planning on spending more on public cloud, 24% more than in 2018 and 50% of enterprises surveyed are already spending around £1m annually. Whilst there may still be concerns around the flexibility and performance capabilities of the public cloud for enterprise grade applications, there are emerging public cloud providers that are building clouds which has been specifically designed for enterprise applications and databases. These next-generation public clouds have the tools and utilities needed by developers to build new cloud native and mobile apps, on a single, unified platform and networking fabric.

Oracle’s next-generation public cloud infrastructure offers the flexibility and performance levels that can rival those found in high performance computing environments on premises, alongside support for Oracle applications and developer tools that allow new applications to be created.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is ideal for any workload, whether that is DevTesting in the cloud, of new applications or customisations, validating patches, or testing technologies like containers or methodologies like continuous integration and continuous delivery.

Oracle Cloud is not just for testing however, enterprises can run production environments here with confidence. Bare metal options enable exceptional levels of performance and Real Application Clusters and load balancing can ensure high availability.

For customers that just want to use the cloud for backup and DR purposes, Oracle’s next-generation public cloud is ideal, with its resilient, secure and highly available storage and integration with virtual machines and automation features.

Businesses that aren’t planning on replacing their on-premises infrastructure with cloud infrastructure can seamlessly extend into the Oracle Cloud using a VPN or FastConnect. A great way of maximising investment into on-premises infrastructure.

But why would businesses choose Oracle Cloud over platforms like AWS or Azure? In a research paper by DAO Research, findings showed that businesses prioritised the support and breadth of solutions offered by a cloud vendor, often over the technology features found in each tier. Oracle ranks highly with its comprehensive offering across all tiers, coupled with strong expertise and support offerings.

At the same time customers are looking for simply priced and transparent solutions with no hidden costs, which minimise complexity. Oracle meets the brief, with a transparent, straightforward pricing and service structure which allows for charge-backs. This is often a necessity for global organisations.

Oracle provides enterprise grade performance and resilience, ideal for the large volume, production environment database-driven workloads and applications that are prevalent in larger organisations. The familiar tools and interfaces of Oracle databases and applications are a big draw for customers.

The DevOps capabilities and cloud native design of Oracle Cloud is designed to support advanced capabilities such as microservices, containers, mobile, analytics and low code development, alongside traditional enterprise applications. This versatility sets Oracle apart from the main competitors and its integrated developer tools remove the DIY element of developing in the public cloud.

For customers looking at hybrid cloud strategies, and it is worth noting that Flexra reports an increase from 51% in 2018 to 58% in 2019 of enterprises with a hybrid cloud strategy, Oracle is well placed to support businesses with the same technology, standards, skillsets and tooling for Oracle Cloud that is used with on-premises Oracle deployments.

Oracle itself predicts that businesses are moving towards a 100% cloud deployment model, and that only cloud providers that can enable highly complex workloads and mission critical applications, with the utmost levels of security, control and continuity will be suitable platforms for 100% data centre replacement projects.

Useful Links

Oracle Cloud Predictions 2019

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure – Cloud Essentials

ODAO Research White Paper – Next Generation Cloud Delivers Enterprise Scale

Flexera 20 19 State of the Cloud Survey

As you probably know, cloud adoption rates are high, with public cloud adoption rates higher than private cloud and many organisations planning a multi cloud strategy. Rightscale’s 2019 State of the Cloud Report found 94% of respondents were using cloud services, 91% have adopted public cloud and 72% private cloud. 69% use at least one public and one private cloud.

But what are the main use cases for cloud and how can businesses find the right cloud for their requirements?

Many businesses use the cloud for a specific application or workload first, then gradually move more. Application development and testing is well suited, as is big data analytics, because of the cloud’s burstable nature. Backup, archiving, DR and high availability can be run simply and reliably. For businesses that need to refresh infrastructure or consolidate multiple applications, the cloud offers a flexible and viable option. Data warehousing requires capacity and scalability, making the cloud an obvious choice.

For most businesses, flexibility, security, performance, availability, cost and simplicity are high on the list of requirements of any cloud deployment, so how do they find all of these?

Oracle Cloud has all the answers.

Flexibility: Oracle Cloud provides customers with an end to end cloud offering, spanning infrastructure, platform and application layers, with integrated consumption models and centralised management. It is flexible and can be deployed as a private cloud, hybrid cloud or public cloud model, which are interchangeable. In fact, Oracle actively encourages a hybrid cloud approach, with pre-packaged applications and tools for rapid provisioning, migration, centralised management and integration.

With Oracle Cloud, applications run identically, whether deployed in the cloud or on premises. As a truly flexible cloud option, Oracle Cloud can run different operating systems and any application, not just Oracle applications. In addition, open standards mean IT teams can develop the integrations they need.

Security: Oracle Cloud is secure, with physical data centre access controls, data encryption, and a multi-layered security strategy which covers all layers of the technology stack. If public cloud really is a no-go for security or regulatory reasons, then Oracle Cloud at Customer is a truly unique option which allows customers to deploy an instance of Oracle Cloud Machine or Oracle Database Exadata Cloud on site. As a subscription model, the deployment is behind the customer’s firewall and Oracle handle installation, configuration, patching, lifecycle management, upgrades and monitoring. This fully managed cloud is secure, flexible, fast and cost effective, with options for offsetting on-premises licenses against the costs.

Performance: Oracle Cloud is an enterprise grade cloud, which offers bare metal options which allow applications to be configured to run on dedicated resources. For mission critical applications, Exadata cloud option ensures extreme performance.

Availability: Oracle offers a Maximum Availability Architecture which includes backup, Oracle Real Application Clusters and DR.

Cost: Cost reductions come from moving entire workloads to the cloud and retiring data centres, and from the elastic capacity offered by Oracle Cloud which facilitates cloud bursts without the need to over-provision. Oracle Cloud also provides the tools needed to migrate applications without the need to rewrite.

Simplicity: As you would expect, moving Oracle applications, such as E-Business Suite, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, Siebel, Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server from premises to cloud is straightforward. They can simply be repackaged for a seamless move to the cloud. Oracle also provides the tools to allow VMware and KVM workloads to be lifted and shifted to the cloud with no changes.

However, non-Oracle applications such as Microsoft Windows, IBM WebSphere, Tomcat, JBoss, SQL Server, DB2, Mongo DB, Cassandra, Postgres and Sybase can also be migrated to the cloud with ease.

Before any migration takes place, Oracle offers all the tools needed to estimate the resources organisations will need to maintain current SLAs. Performance management tools will identify and fix issues which could affect performance.

When it comes to the actual migration, Oracle offers cloning tools to seamlessly copy applications to the cloud. For businesses with zero tolerance for downtime, migration is possible with Oracle GoldenGate Cloud service, which uses real time data replication feature to move data in large quantities.

For new deployments, Oracle Enterprise Cloud allows organisations to reduce the steps involved in multitier application deployments, from an average 14 steps on premises, to just 6 steps. Oracle Cloud Marketplace also offers a set of pre-packaged applications for turnkey deployments.

Whilst it might not be as well known as AWS or Azure, Oracle Cloud has been built for the enterprise, with enterprise applications and workloads front and centre. It meets the needs of businesses and should not be overlooked.

Useful Links

Rightscale, 2019 State of the Cloud