Move to Secure Hybrid Multicloud Faster with Equinix and Oracle Cloud

Speed and the ability to innovate securely and at scale are essential to compete in today’s digital economy. And the unprecedented speed at which the COVID-19 outbreak is impacting businesses across many sectors only underscores the need to stay agile in uncharted waters. To keep up, most enterprises have adopted hybrid multicloud as a fundamental strategy for improved flexibility and efficiency. At the same time, on-premises IT infrastructures remain a significant, albeit declining, part of IT focus, while legacy applications are being migrated to the cloud. According to IDC, by 2021, over 90% of enterprises worldwide will rely on a mix of on-premises/dedicated private clouds, multiple public clouds and legacy platforms to meet their infrastructure needs.[i]

Key considerations for hybrid multicloud architectures

While enterprises are at different points in their hybrid multicloud journey, there are some common considerations. These include:

1. Legacy investment: Investment in legacy applications and IT infrastructure will often determine the optimal path to cloud. For example, enterprises that have invested in Oracle’s JD Edwards enterprise resource planning (ERP) and/or Oracle on-premises databases may find it easier to move to Oracle Cloud.
2. Security and compliance: In some cases, parts of an enterprise application and its associated data cannot be migrated to the cloud due to a data governance requirement. Ensuring regulatory and data privacy compliance may mean keeping part of these systems and data on-premises.
3. Edge vs Core: As data volumes continue to grow, attracting more data gravity, and IT services need to be placed closer to users for lower latency and better performance, enterprise workloads are rapidly evolving into a tiered approach as shown in the diagram below. User-facing applications and data collection from end-point devices and internet of things (IoT) sensors that require real-time response are being placed at the edge. And business workloads that require high-performance compute such as transactional data warehouses, analytics and machine learning (ML) are being placed in regional core clouds or data centers.

Source: Equinix Global Interconnection Index (GXI) Volume 3

4. Integration complexity: With enterprise workloads splitting into multiple tiers across different clouds and the growing need to integrate with ecosystem partners, integration complexity is a key concern.
5. Resiliency: When an enterprise is ready to start their cloud journey, creating a disaster recovery (DR) mirror on a cloud platform can often serve as an easy first step. It’s a cost-effective way to achieve redundancy for business continuity that doesn’t require changes to existing infrastructure. Once deployed, it can also provide an optimal testbed for further migration to the cloud.

Hybrid multicloud made easy with Equinix and Oracle

As enterprises increasingly adopt hybrid multicloud infrastructures, they need direct, secure connectivity between these environments to address the considerations noted above. Equinix and Oracle are helping businesses solve these challenges by enabling secure, flexible, high-performance interconnection between their on-premises infrastructure and whatever cloud services they need from wherever they are.

Equinix provides access to Oracle Cloud via Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) FastConnect with Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric™ (ECX Fabric™) in 44 metros across five continents. And last year Oracle announced that they will be opening 20 new Oracle Cloud regions in 2020, bringing the total to 36 regions worldwide.[ii] ECX Fabric is a software-defined interconnection solution that connects multiple clouds over high-speed, low-latency, virtualized connections. Together, Equinix and Oracle offer direct, secure connectivity to Oracle Cloud – bypassing the public internet – in more geographies than any other provider. As an example, in the first quarter of this year, Equinix added the Amsterdam, Melbourne and Osaka metros for OCI commercial cloud as well as the OCI United Kingdom Government Cloud. This brings the total metros to 12 for OCI Commercial and 2 for OCI Government enabled with ECX Fabric, and new metros are being added rapidly as Oracle continues to expand. This provides the following benefits:

• Easier migration of Oracle systems and applications to Oracle cloud.
• Broader access to digital ecosystems of networks, clouds and partners, including those that are not available locally.
• Improved agility to respond to changing market needs and scale on-demand.
• Expanded reach to deliver digital services in other locations, as well as connect your own infrastructure across multiple geographic locations.
• Better resiliency by establishing cloud-based redundancy over multiple geographic locations.
• Lower cost due to OPEX versus CAPEX model.
• On-demand connectivity between a database or application tier on any cloud to a database or application tier in Oracle Cloud.

U.S. Silica, a diversified minerals and logistics company, was experiencing rapid growth as well as taking on mergers and acquisitions and needed to transform its IT for better performance and scalability. It also wanted to implement a dedicated DR solution for business continuity in the event of a disaster. To get there, the firm set out to upgrade and move its on-premises JD Edwards ERP and supporting databases to the cloud. U.S. Silica’s system integrator BIAS, and managed service provider Datatility, in partnership with Equinix, created a high-performing, scalable, secure and interconnected multi-region cloud infrastructure on Platform Equinix®. Leveraging OCI FastConnect and ECX Fabric between U.S. Silica’s Eastern and Western regions accelerated the provisioning of high-speed, low-latency virtual connections to Oracle Cloud at a reduced cost. The joint solution enabled U.S. Silica to integrate a hybrid cloud solution that looked and acted like an extension of their own network and provided the following benefits:

• Migration and integration: High-speed, low latency private interconnection accelerated the migration of JD Edwards 9.2 and database to Oracle Cloud, while ensuring interoperability between Oracle and non-Oracle systems on-premises and in the cloud
• Performance: 10X improvement in monthly financial reporting runtimes, from hours to minutes
• Scalability: Increased network scalability and storage capacity to support an anticipated two-fold increase in data backup volume
• Agility: Faster provisioning via virtual connections to access Oracle Cloud and DR sites ꟷ in hours instead of weeks
• Cost: Reduced CAPEX with JD Edwards and Oracle database migration to Oracle Cloud
• Disaster recovery: A complete DR solution with an estimated three-hour disaster recovery time, a more than 85% improvement

U.S. Silica’s hybrid cloud deployment

To learn more about how you can achieve a successful enterprise cloud migration with Equinix and Oracle, check out the U.S. Silica case study and watch the webinar below on how to setup OCI FastConnect with ECX Fabric.

You may also be interested in reading:

IDC Market Notes on ECX Fabric and the ECX Fabric expansion

451 Research Report – Architecting Hybrid IT and Edge for Digital Advantage

[i]IDC, “FutureScape: Worldwide Cloud 2020 Predictions,” Doc #US44640719, Oct 2019.

[ii] Oracle, Oracle Cloud Accelerates Expansion to Bring Infrastructure to Customers Globally, Sept 2019; Oracle Accelerates the Rapid Global Expansion of Cloud Regions, Sept 2019.