Oracle just announced the expansion of their partnership with Microsoft to deliver Oracle database services in Azure. You can read the blog post here.
Oracle and Microsoft expand partnership to deliver Oracle database services in Azure
This is a very interesting development for a number of reasons. Here are some of my thoughts…
The database is not a driving factor in cloud provider selection
Over the years Oracle have been playing the game of making Oracle Cloud look like the most attractive place to run Oracle databases. What I think they had lost sight of is the database is not the driving factor in the choice of which cloud provider to pick. It might not even be part of the decision process. Quite often there are other factors that have much more sway.
This move is a welcome step, but I feel like it should just be the beginning!
Software should run on every cloud
I’m sure some people in Oracle now consider themselves a “cloud company”, but I think most of us still consider Oracle as a software company. Oracle rely on sales/licensing to make their money. As a result, anything that blocks the sale of a product is a problem.
Whatever cloud provider I pick, Oracle should be hoping I choose their software to run on my systems.
Not only are companies multi-cloud, but they already use multiple database engines. If there is any friction to using your product, they can go elsewhere.
A welcome start, but…
I’m really glad Oracle have taken this step. Microsoft are the second largest cloud provider, and anything that simplifies using Oracle databases on Azure is a good thing. IMHO this should be the start of the journey. Oracle should be trying to get similar partnerships with other cloud providers too.
Unless I’m missing something, or it’s not been amended yet, this document looks unchanged to me.
The pricing of Oracle on Azure seems to be unchanged, and we are still limited to AWS and Azure as “Authorized Cloud Environments”.
What would I do?
There are two main things:
- I would make the pricing consistent across all cloud providers and on-prem.
- I would increase the number of “Authorized Cloud Providers”.
The stats vary, but a quick Google shows me the following market share information.
- AWS : 32%
- Azure : 22%
- Google : 11%
- Alibaba : 4%
- Oracle : 2%
Just adding Google and Alibaba would add another 15% of the cloud market as potential customers.
What do I know?
I’m sure someone will tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about, and maybe they are right. I just think Oracle should be making sure most/all of their software is available to run anywhere people want to run it.
As I said before, I’m really happy about this announcement, but I think it needs to be the first step on a longer journey.
Cheers
Tim…