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At CloudWorld, Oracle completes hyperscaler trifecta with AWS
Oracle opens up its annual CloudWorld event with a plethora of announcements, launching a partnership with cloud giant AWS and expanding previously announced tie-ups with Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure
As founder Larry Ellison made the final tweaks to his keynote speech at Oracle’s annual CloudWorld fest in Las Vegas, the venerable software supplier teased several key developments to expand upon in the coming days, amid predictably strong quarterly numbers.
Leading the pack out of the gate is the launch of a new partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), with enhancements to two previously announced tie-ups in hot pursuit.
Oracle Database@AWS enables customers to access Oracle Autonomous Database on dedicated infrastructure and Oracle Exadata Database Service in AWS. It’s designed to bring users a “unified experience” between Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and AWS, with aspects such as database admin, billing and joint customer support much simplified.
Users will also gain the ability to flip data between their Oracle Databases to applications running on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), AWS Analytics services and AWS artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) services, Bedrock included.
Ultimately, the two firms claim, the tie-up will marry Oracle’s data management prowess with the security, agility and flexibility of AWS. The services are expected to go live before the end of 2024.
“We are seeing huge demand from customers that want to use multiple clouds,” said Ellison. “To meet this demand and give customers the choice and flexibility they want, Amazon and Oracle are seamlessly connecting AWS services with the very latest Oracle Database technology, including the Oracle Autonomous Database. With Oracle Cloud Infrastructure deployed inside of AWS datacentres, we can provide customers with the best possible database and network performance.”
AWS CEO Matt Garman added: “As far back as 2008, customers could run their Oracle workloads in the cloud, and since then, many of the world’s largest and most security-sensitive organisations have chosen to deploy their Oracle software on AWS.
“This new, deeper partnership will provide Oracle Database services within AWS to allow customers to take advantage of the flexibility, reliability and scalability of the world’s most widely adopted cloud alongside enterprise software they rely on.”
Customers line up
US electronics retailer Best Buy is among some of the early customers eager to clamber aboard. The firm’s chief digital, analytics and technology officer, Brian Tilzer, said he had already seen great value in using AWS as his preferred cloud provider for the organisation’s transactional platforms.
“Our work with AWS unlocks the technological agility and scalability that helps Best Buy to personalise and humanise the consumer electronics shopping experience like nobody else can,” he said.
“This announcement makes it easier for us to move some of our database workloads to AWS and presents an exciting opportunity to further delight our customers.”
Vodafone chief technology officer Scott Petty added: “The collaboration between industry leaders like AWS and Oracle is great news for our customers.
“The combination of AWS and Oracle complements our own strength and breadth of capabilities, and will allow us to develop and deliver secure, resilient and innovative services faster and at scale,” he said.
“In addition to giving Vodafone’s developers access to the latest cloud and data technologies, this partnership also avoids unnecessary fragmentation, removes duplication and reduces cost.”
Collaboration grows with Google and Microsoft
Not to leave out the other cloud giants, Oracle also revealed that OracleDatabase@Google – first announced in June 2024 – is now becoming generally available in four Google Cloud regions, US East (Ashburn, Virginia), US West (Salt Lake City, Utah) UK South (London) and Germany Central (Frankfurt).
This will enable customers to run Oracle Exadata Database Service, Oracle Autonomous Database and Oracle Database Zero Data Loss Autonomous Recovery Service on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) in selected Google Cloud datacentres.
Oracle is also touting the ability to run applications on Oracle Linux via the Google Cloud, and access to Google’s AI capabilities, bringing “enterprise truth” to data, and faster insights by running two clouds as one while maintaining feature and pricing parity with OCI.
“Oracle and Google Cloud have extended their multicloud strategy with this partnership, and customers can now take advantage of the automation in Oracle Autonomous Database and the performance of Exadata on OCI running in Google datacentres,” said Carl Olofson, research vice-president of data management software at IDC.
“As a result, customers can combine data from Oracle databases with Google Cloud services like Gemini foundation models and the Vertex AI development platform to develop and run a new generation of cloud native applications. Oracle and Google Cloud’s mutual customers are the ultimate winners in this multicloud strategy, as they benefit from the simplicity, security, and low latency of a unified operating environment.”
Wider availability
Finally, Oracle Database@Azure, first announced by Ellison and Microsoft supremo Satya Nadella in 2023, is now becoming available in six Microsoft Azure regions, Australia East, Canada Central, East US, France Central, Germany West Central and UK South, with several new services being added into the bargain.
These include the addition of Oracle Database Zero Data Loss Autonomous Recovery Service – a fully managed data protection service for Oracle Exadata Database Service – to Database@Azure, promising to fast-track customers’ ability to get back on their feet in the event of a sudden outage or cyber attack. Going forward, customers will also have the flexibility to recover locally in their primary Azure region to an alternate one, or even an OCI one if they wish.
Alongside this, Oracle hopes to soon add a database replication and heterogenous data integration service as a managed service option in Database@Azure, promising full feature parity with OCI GoldenGate, supporting integrations with Microsoft Fabric and OneLake, and enhancing existing Azure data and messaging store integrations.
“We are seeing significant customer momentum as global organisations accelerate their cloud migrations with Oracle Database@Azure,” said Karan Batta, senior vice-president of OCI. “Our commitment to expanding the Azure cloud region footprint ensures that even more customers worldwide have access to the multicloud capabilities that accelerate application innovation and development.”
Brett Tanzer, vice-president of product management at Microsoft, added: “In today’s complex and rapidly evolving business landscape, a one-size-fits-all cloud solution simply isn’t enough to meet the diverse needs of modern enterprises. Through our partnership with Oracle, we’re expanding Oracle Database@Azure and helping more customers respond to market shifts and maintain a competitive edge as they grow, and their needs evolve.”
Numbers game
Amid these advances, Oracle’s first-quarter financial results also dropped on Monday 9 September, with revenues up 7% year-on-year to $13.3bn, and cloud services growing by over 20%. Oracle made GAAP net income of $2.9bn for the period.
CEO Safra Catz noted that cloud services was now by some margin Oracle’s largest business, helping accelerate both the firm’s income and its earnings per share. He also hailed a strong contract backlog, which is expected to help push to new heights in the coming months.
Ellison also talked up Oracle’s growing strength in cloud, boasting of 162 cloud datacentres either already up and running or being built, the largest of which is 800 megawatts and contains acres of Nvidia GPU clusters used to train large-scale AI models.
“Our database business growth rate is increasing as a result of our multicloud agreements with Microsoft and Google,” he said. “Our recently signed AWS contract was a milestone in the multicloud era. Soon customers will be able use the latest Oracle database technology from within every hyperscaler’s cloud.”
