4 Reasons Oracle is Returning as a Big Player in the Cloud Space

According to Forbes Magazine, Oracle is the third largest IT organization in the world. So it’s not a big surprise that they’re making a splash in the world of cloud infrastructure. However, there is a reason Oracle is a successful company — they create reliable and scalable hardware especially when it comes to databases.

While AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure hold the majority of the market share, there are several reasons Oracle is a big player in the cloud market: data storage and retrieval within the cloud. Naturally, Oracle is going to play to its strength as a database host and provider. 

Need Oracle Training?

Oracle is known for its database technology but has been making serious inroads in regard to cloud technology. Whether you are a database administrator or a cloud engineer, CBT Nuggets has Oracle training to help you level up your skills. Browse all of our Oracle training — and start learning how to use Oracle technologies today.

1. Ease of Migration

One of the most intimidating aspects of moving to the cloud is migrating critical enterprise workloads. For example, moving terabytes of their customers' sensitive data to a cloud platform creates risk. It is possible for that data to be altered, deleted, or even stolen in transit. Luckily, these risks can be mitigated by becoming an Oracle Database SQL Certified Associate.

Oracle cloud has a reputation for making this high-risk maneuver as painless as possible, especially if the customer already has an Oracle Database. So if the customer already has Oracle solutions on-premise, it will probably be less expensive to move your data onto the OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure) than its competitors.

Once your data is safely located on OCI, your performance-sensitive data will run excellent on Oracle's architecture which scales up, as opposed to other cloud solutions which focus on scaling out. This means that the workload is spread on one machine with stacked resources as opposed to multiple VMs with fewer resources. Once your data is on the OCI, you can take advantage of Oracle’s DBaaS.

2. Database as a Service

In addition to ease of migration, the customer can take advantage of Oracle’s DBaaS or Database as a Service. DBaaS is a complete database management solution provided by an organization that already has a sterling reputation in the field. By utilizing DBaaS, your database administrator can focus on your customer’s data instead of replacing hardware or applying patches. This sort of maintenance will be taken care of by OCI. Oracle’s wide market share is a testament to its database competency. With OCI, that competency and experience are brought right to your organization’s doorstep.

Database as a Service is a viable solution for any organization that needs to store data. But what if an organization needs a data warehouse? Oracle also has a competitive advantage here with its Autonomous Data Warehouse.

3. Autonomous Data Warehouse

Oracle’s Autonomous Data warehouse (ADW) is very similar to AWS Snowflake as both are data warehouse solutions. However, Oracle’s ADW provides numerous self-managing capabilities that make it very easy to set up, maintain, and secure data without needing to be a database expert.

For example, ADW automatically alters query complexity based on the size of the query. While that may sound complicated, Oracles queries—and databases in general—are no big secret. In fact, we have an entire course on queries, DBMs, and Oracle fundamentals.

In any case, ADW’s competitors require the organization to buy a fixed data warehouse size. ADW on the other hand is truly scalable. ADW also provides built-in, machine-learning, security, and analytical capabilities that will provide valuable feedback in a hand-off fashion. ADW also provides APEX, a low-code solution that utilizes JSON to create any solution required for that particular data warehouse — such as data visualization aids and data gathering solutions.

However, none of this would really matter if the platform wasn’t secure. Let’s talk a bit about why Oracle’s unique security model makes it a big cloud player.

4. Cloud Security Service

OCI provides numerous security measures to ensure the data stored on its cloud is safe and secure. For example, Oracle provides zero downtime OS patching for Linux. This will achieve requisite compliance, address known exploits, and is fully compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. 

Additionally, Oracle handles certificate management by creating a private root certificate authority (CA). This provides automation of certificate deployment and also removes the need to pay for a certificate authority such Digicert or Entrust. In the end, Oracle goes above and beyond the call of duty with regard to security.

Final Thoughts

While Oracle may only hold a 2% market share in the cloud, it is clear they are serious about providing top-tier solutions to organizations. Oracle brings a vast amount of database experience to the table. This experience allows them to easily create a secure and reliable data warehouse, DBMSs, and migration tools. 

On top of all that, they are one of the largest organizations in the world with plenty of capital to spend on this venture. So it’s very likely we’ll be hearing a lot more about Oracle Cloud in the future.