Oracle Generation 2 cloud service to debut in Australia

Oracle will flip the switch for its Generation 2 cloud service in Sydney by the end of August 2019 in a bid to carve out a bigger slice of Australia’s growing cloud computing market.

The Sydney cloud region, which will be followed by a Melbourne region early next year, joins a slew of Generation 2 regions such as Mumbai, Zurich and Sao Paulo slated to open in August. By the end of 2019, the service will be available in 19 regions globally.

First announced at OpenWorld 2018, Oracle’s Generation 2 cloud service claims to provide enterprises with better performance, pricing and security. The portfolio, aimed at challenging cloud leaders, includes automated analytics as well as the Oracle autonomous database.

“This is a whole new class of cloud, designed from the ground up to both host mission critical workloads and drive innovation,” said Valery Lanovenko, vice-president for technology in Australia and New Zealand.

Lanovenko added that the new datacentre from which the Generation 2 service is delivered will address “significant customer demand” for Oracle’s cloud infrastructure and autonomous database services while meeting local regulatory requirements at the same time.

Weighing in on Oracle’s latest cloud move in Australia, Agatha Poon, research director at 451 Research, said with the data explosion happening across Asia-Pacific, enterprises will need fast data processing capabilities and enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure to keep pace with business demands.

“Organisations demand uncompromising security, predictable performance, optimal price/performance, highly scalable cloud-native offerings, and no vendor lock-in,” Poon said.

“Vendors that can meet these needs and provide openness, cloud interoperability and portability stand the best chance at being selected as the cloud of choice.”

As part of its cloud strategy, Oracle has been luring enterprise users of Oracle applications to move to its public cloud service. One such company, Nufarm, has moved its eBusiness Suite workloads from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to Oracle Cloud and expects to reap savings of up to 40% in licensing and infrastructure costs.

“It’s also more efficient for our business because having a hybrid IT environment means we have improved visibility across our network to help us spot and deal with issues quickly,” said Morris Lieberman, CIO of Nufarm, a global crop protection company.

Richard Agnew, who leads Accenture’s Oracle cloud infrastructure and platform services businesses in Asia-Pacific, said the Generation 2 services delivered from a local datacentre will help the consulting firm combine the breadth of Oracle’s enterprise-grade offerings with its expertise and dedicated resources.

The appetite for public cloud services in Australia continues to grow, with 42% of businesses in the country reporting the use of cloud computing compared with 31% in 2015-16, according to a recent survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

But the study also revealed that insufficient knowledge of paid cloud computing services was the greatest factor limiting or preventing its use, as cited by 17% of businesses.

Besides Oracle, major global public cloud players such as Amazon and Microsoft have established key datacentre facilities in the country, including those catered to the needs of public sector agencies.

Rafael Moyano, managing director of IT consulting firm Modis Australia, which has worked with clients across multiple industries on cloud technology projects, said while there has been strong progress on cloud adoption in Australia, businesses are still being held back by a skills gap.