Cloud Apps Series 2023
15 March, 2023
Microsoft and Oracle announced a new alliance today that will see the two companies directly connect their clouds over a direct network connection so that their users can then move workloads and data seamlessly between the two. This alliance goes a bit beyond just basic direct connectivity and also includes identity interoperability.
This kind of alliance is relatively unusual between what are essentially competing clouds, but while Oracle wants to be seen as a major player in this space, it also realizes that it isn’t likely to get to the size of an AWS, Azure or Google Cloud anytime soon. For Oracle, this alliance means that its users can run services like the Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle JD Edwards on Azure while still using an Oracle database in the Oracle cloud, for example. With that, Microsoft still gets to run the workloads and Oracle gets to do what it does best (though Azure users will also continue be able to run their Oracle databases in the Azure cloud, too).
“The Oracle Cloud offers a complete suite of integrated applications for sales, service, marketing, human resources, finance, supply chain and manufacturing, plus highly automated and secure Generation 2 infrastructure featuring the Oracle Autonomous Database,” said Don Johnson, executive vice president, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), in today’s announcement. “Oracle and Microsoft have served enterprise customer needs for decades. With this alliance, our joint customers can migrate their entire set of existing applications to the cloud without having to re-architect anything, preserving the large investments they have already made.”
For now, the direct interconnect between the two clouds is limited to Azure US East and Oracle’s Ashburn data center. The two companies plan to expand this alliance to other regions in the future, though they remain mum on the details. It’ll support applications like JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Oracle Retail and Hyperion on Azure, in combination with Oracle databases like RAC, Exadata and the Oracle Autonomous Database running in the Oracle Cloud.
“As the cloud of choice for the enterprise, with over 95% of the Fortune 500 using Azure, we have always been first and foremost focused on helping our customers thrive on their digital transformation journeys,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and AI division. “With Oracle’s enterprise expertise, this alliance is a natural choice for us as we help our joint customers accelerate the migration of enterprise applications and databases to the public cloud.”
In a press release, Oracle says the move will make it possible to split workloads, with one part running in Oracle’s cloud and another in Azure. Sharing networking via low-latency, private interconnect of ExpressRoute and Oracle FastConnect and with unified identity and access management the two parts will interct seamlessly, the companies claim.
The release gives an example use case of “running Oracle E-Business Suite or Oracle JD Edwards on Azure against an Oracle Autonomous Database running on Exadata infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud.”
The new capabilities unveiled today include the ability of joint customers of Microsoft and Oracle to extend their on-premises data centres to both clouds, although currently this direct interconnect is only available in two US regions.
Unified single sign-on facility and automated user provisioning are now available, allowing users to manage resources across both clouds, and Oracle applications can use Azure Active Directory as the identity provider and for conditional access, although this feature is still in early preview mode.
There is support for both custom applications and packaged Oracle applications including JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Oracle Retail and Hyperion to run on Azure, accessing RAC, Exadata or Autonomous databases running in Oracle Cloud.
Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and AI division, said in a statement: “With Oracle’s enterprise expertise, this alliance is a natural choice for us as we help our joint customers accelerate the migration of enterprise applications and databases to the public cloud.”
Don Johnson, executive vice president, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) said: “Oracle and Microsoft have served enterprise customer needs for decades. With this partnership, our joint customers can migrate their entire set of existing applications to the cloud without having to re-architect anything, preserving the large investments they have already made.”
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More info :
What To Expect From Oracle and Microsoft Cloud Partnership
Oracle and Microsoft Interconnect Clouds to Accelerate Enterprise Cloud Adoption
