Oracle, Microsoft expand ties to help customers boost their migration to cloud

SAN FRANCISCO: Cloud major Oracle and tech giant Microsoft on Friday expanded their partnership to announce Oracle Database@Azure, which gives customers direct access to Oracle database services running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and deployed in Microsoft Azure data centres.

With Oracle Database@Azure, the companies will help customers accelerate their migration to the cloud, so they can modernise their IT environments and take advantage of Azure’s infrastructure, tooling, and services.

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

“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,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft.

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

This combination provides customers with more flexibility regarding where they run their workloads.

“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,” said Larry Ellison, Oracle Chairman and CTO.

By collocating Oracle Exadata hardware in Azure data centres, customers will experience the best possible database and network performance, he added.

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

“The announcement displays how industry leaders Microsoft and Oracle are putting their customers’ interests first and providing a collaborative solution that enables organisations like Fidelity to deliver best-in-class experiences for our customers and meet the substantial compliance and regulatory requirements with minimal downtime,” said Mihir Shah, enterprise head of data, Fidelity Investments.

Scott Petty, Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone added that the new offering enables them “to deliver innovative and differentiated digital services faster and more cost effectively to our customers.”