Among the biggest news from Oracle CloudWorld this year was the announcement that AWS had become the third hyperscaler to unite Oracle’s cloud infrastructure with its own, mirroring in key ways the partnerships Oracle previously built with Microsft and Google Cloud.
Now, AWS will integrate the Oracle Autonomous Database and Oracle Exadata Database Service with its proprietary infrastructure, effectively making access to data in Oracle and AWS seamless.
The news was important not just because Oracle had achieved a strategic relationship that just a year ago would have seemed unprecedented, but because of the customer benefits it bestows. In effect, Oracle has driven the emergence of a new cloud era in which siloed infrastructure is being replaced by an open, multi-cloud architecture — and that’s a model that definitively favors the customer.
There’s another new development that speaks to the shifting competitive landscape: The hyperscalers who’ve partnered with Oracle now appear to be jockeying to offer the best, most complete bundle of Oracle Database services — and the most complete geographic coverage — in their clouds.
Multi-Cloud History
A little over a year ago, Oracle announced it had expanded its partnership with Microsoft and launched Oracle Database@Azure. This seminal deal was one of the most significant since the emergence of the cloud. It enabled users to access Oracle Database services running on OCI within Microsoft Azure data centers.
Then, in June 2024, Google Cloud followed in the footsteps of Microsoft with the announcement of Oracle Interconnect for Google Cloud, which enabled users across 11 global regions to avoid cross-cloud data transfer charges. Most recently, Oracle completed the trifecta by signing its multi-cloud deal with AWS.
Latest Developments
A string of announcements from Oracle partners bolster these relationships in ways that benefit the customer while also benefiting Oracle.
In a clear indicator of its ambitions to deliver the most robust services around Oracle software, Microsoft recently revealed a series of enhancements to Oracle Database@Azure. As well as integrating Microsoft Fabric through OCI GoldenGate, Microsoft is securing Oracle workloads with Microsoft Sentinel, and expanding availability from six to 21 regions.
Regarding Google Cloud, as promised, Oracle Database@Google Cloud is now generally available. The service enables customers in four Google Cloud regions to run Oracle Exadata Database Service, Oracle Autonomous Database, and Oracle Database Zero Data Loss Autonomous Recovery Service on OCI in Google Cloud data centers.
In the coming months, Google Cloud will expand the service to further regions across North America, EMEA, LATAM, and APAC.
Looking Ahead
The cloud landscape is currently undergoing significant transformation. Multicloud adoption has become widespread, but it’s still fragmented. There is also a growing reliance on cloud services to support the rapidly growing AI application that customers are deploying. Meeting these evolving needs of customers is crucial.
With Oracle’s unprecedented string of multicloud partnerships, Ellison has once again made a masterstroke. The key component in this emerging cloud landscape is demand. Customers want an easy way to work across multiple clouds and, as such, adoption is incredibly high. It’s this demand that encouraged Microsoft to increase the number of regions that could benefit from Oracle Database@Azure.
Ellison has effectively set the terms for a new, more open cloud landscape, terms that he quite explicitly reaffirmed at the recent CloudWorld conference. Now the stage has been set, and one of the world’s leading cloud vendors has staked out a leadership position by putting customer experience on par with, if not above, competitive considerations.
The rest of the hyperscalers, as well as the industry more broadly, have little choice but to follow suit.
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