Oracle Database in Microsoft Azure will help companies accelerate their migration to the cloud
They used to be fierce competitors, but when Larry Ellison of Oracle visited Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond for the first time in his life, he and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gave exciting news about how Oracle and Microsoft expand its partnership to strengthen the ties between Oracle’s and Microsoft’s technologies in the cloud.
- This is the moment where data and AI are coming together to transform businesses and business processes,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, when he and Larry Ellison, Chairman of the Board and Chief Technology Officer of Oracle launched the new partnership in the cloud; Oracle Database@Azure.
Connecting Oracle databases and Microsoft technologies in the cloud is nothing new for Cegal. Cegal, as one of few Oracle and Microsoft partners, has been working with OCI-Azure Interconnect since it was first launched in 2019. At Cegal, we have been working with mission-critical IT solutions for many of Scandinavia's largest businesses, helping them leverage both Azure and Oracle technologies. Cegal is a Platinum Oracle Partner and a Microsoft Gold Cloud Platform Partner, which means we have the certified expertise necessary to move your business to the cloud.
Expanding long-time partnership
Microsoft and Oracle expanded their partnership in the cloud by bringing Oracle Database Services on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and deploying it in Microsoft Azure data centers across the globe.
With the introduction of Oracle Database@Azure, Oracle and Microsoft are helping customers accelerate their migration to the cloud so they can modernize their IT environments and take advantage of Azure’s infrastructure, tooling, and services. Customers will benefit from:
● 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 (data center) within Azure
● The ability to build new cloud-native applications using OCI and Azure technologies, including Azure’s best-in-class AI services
● The assurance of an architecture that is tested and supported by two of the most trusted names in the cloud.
Moving Oracle hardware to Microsoft data centers
Larry Ellison explains what the Oracle Database@Azure is all about: "We are actually taking the Oracle hardware and the software, all the database hardware and all the database software we use in the Oracle Cloud, and physically moving it into Azure data centers. The Oracle hardware and software will co-locate in the Azure data center. So when customers use Microsoft technology connected to Oracle technology, they'll get best-in-class performance, reliability, and security.”
Satya Nadella said Artificial Intelligence (AI) was the key driver behind why Oracle Database@Azure is launched now: “AI exists because of data. Anything you do around AI, you need to have access to data. When we now have Oracle Database in Azure, we can take something like Azure OpenAI to where the data is. So whether it is fine-tuning a model, pre-training a model, or meta prompting a model, requires low latency to data.”
Larry Ellison from Oracle added: “We are trying to hasten that process to make it easier for customers to move their entire data center workload to the cloud. And that means moving all those Oracle databases, which are currently on-premise, into the cloud, everything to coexist and be easily managed, even though some of this technology is Oracle's technology, some of the technology is Microsoft technology, to allow you to manage that infrastructure seamlessly, that's a multi-cloud, multi-provider.”
Latency less than two milliseconds
The Oracle Database Service for Microsoft Azure is an Oracle-managed service currently available in 11 pairs of OCI and Azure regions worldwide. It uses the existing OCI-Azure Interconnect to offer latency between the two clouds of less than two milliseconds over secure, private, high-speed networks. This means developers and mission-critical applications running on Azure can directly access the performance, availability, and automation advantages of Oracle Autonomous Database Service, Exadata Database Service, and Base Database Service running on OCI.
For customers moving their critical data environments from within the walls of their business to the cloud, one key consideration is the ability to seamlessly connect data sources to new and massive-scale cloud services like Azure OpenAI and Azure Kubernetes Service. That’s one reason Microsoft is expanding its partnership with Oracle, enabling Oracle’s customers to apply the unique services of the Microsoft cloud to Oracle’s mission-critical databases. With this new offering, Azure is the only cloud provider besides Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to host Oracle services, including Oracle Exadata Database Service and Oracle Autonomous Database on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in Azure datacenters.
