What the Oracle & Microsoft Partnership means for the future of Multi-Cloud

Oracle just announced they have entered into a partnership with Microsoft to Connect Azure Cloud Services to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure - with a direct low latency connection between their data-centres, enabling customers to migrate and run mission-critical workloads across both Cloud platforms.

Essentially it enables customers to build applications with multiple different technologies in the Cloud, just like they did on-premise in the past. By combining Oracle's extensive Cloud portfolios, customers can use them seamlessly as if they were one Cloud, delivering a highly optimised, secure and unified Cloud experience.

The details of the deal are as follows:

• Seamless and Secure Experience: the best of both Clouds from once console.
• Very low latency: 1ms round trip utilising FastConnect and ExpressRoute.
• Unified Identify Management: Seamless ID Federation and Single Sign-On
• Certified Application Development: Multiple combinations of architectures possible
• Collaborative Support model: Full support from either vendor.

This is a big win for customers who want to use best of breed Multi-Cloud technology for running Enterprise Grade Multi-Cloud Applications between Azure and Oracle, all from the one console. You get a one-stop shop for all the database and Cloud services, and the best of both Oracle and Azure Combined to innovate across Clouds. It’s engineered for enterprise & mission-critical workloads and you can leverage your existing investments by migrating on-premise apps without having to re-architect.

Supported Deployments:

• Full stack Oracle or custom applications on Oracle Database on OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure) and Full stack apps on Azure that interoperate and share data
• Oracle Apps (PSFT, JDE.,) on Azure using Oracle Database on OCI
• Custom .NET application on Azure using Oracle Database on OCI
• Custom Cloud Native applications on Azure using Oracle Autonomous DB
• Applications/Oracle Database in OCI, Azure Data Lake for analytics & Cognitive Services for AI
• SQL Azure, SQL Server, SQL DW on Azure and Oracle Analytics Cloud, Data Science service on OCI

These are just some examples but many more are possible. Here is a typical example use case:

So what does this mean for Multi-Cloud?

The deal solidifies the fact that the Multi-Cloud world will be the playground for innovation, allowing organisations to launch new services and enhance advanced technologies. It is also an indicator of Multi-Cloud initiatives becoming essential and strategic to enterprises. Now customers are actively seeking strong partners with Multi-Cloud specialisations who can consult with them over their entire Cloud strategy and will be instrumental to help them on this journey.

A recent Survey found that 85% of companies are already operating in a Multi-Cloud environment and 98% of the organizations forecast that they will be using multiple hybrid Clouds by 2021. But only 41% have a Multi-Cloud strategy, and 70% do not have a multi-Cloud management platform today.

To stay on top of this, many customers are utilising Multi-Cloud Management Platforms where they can get a Single Pane of Glass for their Multi-Cloud infrastructure to monitor billing, usage, reporting, analytics & compliance, but also to purchase and provision Cloud services all in the one place. The Multi-Cloud Management market is projected to be worth 3.4bn by 2021, and some estimates say that up to 60% of all new Cloud deployments will be via a Cloud Management Platform within 3 years. 

Oracle is the only Hyperscale Cloud Vendor to start a dedicated Multi-Cloud team to address this opportunity. We are building a network of highly skilled Multi-Cloud Specialist Partners in EMEA to help our base of 10,000+ customers in EMEA who will be moving to Cloud over the next 3 years. If you would like to be part of this journey with us, please drop me a line at [email protected].

So what do you think about the partnership? Let us now in the comments below.

**All Views are my own and do not reflect that of Oracle**