Nadella, Ellison, seal deal for Oracle Database@Azure

Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella and Oracle founder, chairman and CTO Larry Ellison made a rare joint statement at the end of last week.

They announced a new cloud offering, Oracle Database@Azure, which gives customers direct access to Oracle database services running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), but deployed in Microsoft Azure datacenters.

Oracle Database@Azure delivers the performance, scale, and workload availability advantages of Oracle Database on OCI with the security, flexibility, and services of Microsoft Azure, including AI services like Azure OpenAI. 

This combination provides customers with more flexibility regarding where they run their workloads. It also provides a streamlined environment that simplifies cloud purchasing and management between Oracle Database and Azure services.

With the introduction of Oracle Database@Azure, Oracle and Microsoft say, they are helping customers accelerate their migration to the cloud, so they can modernise their IT environments and take advantage of Azure’s infrastructure, tooling, and services.

Benefits include:

• More options to move their Oracle databases to the cloud;
• The highest level of Oracle database performance, scale, and availability, as well as feature and pricing parity;
• The simplicity, security, and latency of a single operating environment (datacenter) within Azure;
• The ability to build new cloud native applications using OCI and Azure technologies, including Azure’s AI services;

“We have a real opportunity to help organisations bring their mission-critical applications to the cloud so they can transform every part of their business with this next generation of AI,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft. “Our expanded partnership with Oracle will make Microsoft Azure the only other cloud provider to run Oracle’s database services and help our customers unlock a new wave of cloud-powered innovation.”

“Most customers already use multiple clouds,” said Larry Ellison, Oracle chairman and CTO. “Microsoft and Oracle have been working together to make it easy for those customers to seamlessly connect Azure Services with the very latest Oracle Database technology. By collocating Oracle Exadata hardware in Azure datacenters, customers will experience the best possible database and network performance. We are proud to partner with Microsoft to deliver this best-in-class capability to customers.”

The new service delivers a fully integrated experience for deploying, managing, and using Oracle database instances within Azure. It enables organisations to drive breakthroughs in the cloud using their existing skills to leverage the best of Oracle and Microsoft capabilities directly within the Azure portal.

The new service is designed to eliminate customers’ biggest challenges in adopting multicloud architectures, including disjointed management, siloed tools, and a complex purchasing process.

As a result of this expanded partnership, customers will have the choice to deploy their Azure services with their fully managed Oracle Database services within a single data centre, including support for Oracle Exadata Database services, Oracle Autonomous Database services, and Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC). Oracle and Microsoft have also developed a joint support model to provide rapid response and resolution for mission-critical workloads.

Additionally, Oracle and Microsoft have significantly simplified the purchasing and contracting process. Customers will be able to purchase Oracle Database@Azure through Azure Marketplace, leveraging their existing Azure agreements. They will also be able to use their existing Oracle Database license benefits including Bring Your Own License and the Oracle Support Rewards program.

Mihir Shah, enterprise head of data at Fidelity Investments, said: “As we continue our digital transformation through innovation and technology, interoperability across cloud service providers to enable safe, secure, and rapid financial transactions for our 40-million customers is paramount. 

“Today’s announcement displays how industry leaders Microsoft and Oracle are putting their customers’ interests first and providing a collaborative solution that enables organizations like Fidelity to deliver best-in-class experiences for our customers and meet the substantial compliance and regulatory requirements with minimal downtime.”

Magesh Bagavathi, senior vice president and global chief technology officer of PepsiCo, said: “Data is the lifeblood of any business, and the cloud is the best way to analyse it so that insights become actionable. As one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world with a market value of over $200-billion, the ability to run our mission-critical systems and associated data in the cloud with Oracle Database@Azure gives us a scaled strategic advantage across our global operations.”

Oracle will operate and manage these OCI services directly within Microsoft’s datacenters globally, beginning with regions in North America and Europe.