In the Age of Cloud + AI, Be Smart About Where You Put Your Data

Cloud is so pervasive these days, the question is no longer “if” an enterprise should move to the cloud, but rather “when” or “how” it should move to the cloud. And given that emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT) are all about data, perhaps the most important question to ask when building your cloud environment is: “where should the data reside?”

According to Oracle’s Top 10 Cloud Predictions for 2020, by 2025, 100% of enterprise applications will include some form of AI and there will be 600x more sensitive data shared in the cloud.[i] Protecting confidential data like this will be core to a company’s success in adopting these new services.

Oracle’s data-based cloud strategy

Oracle has been a market leader in database technology since its founding, positioning it well for the age of AI. The company is parlaying this deep database expertise into its cloud strategy with Autonomous Database, which it describes as combining “the flexibility of cloud with the power of machine learning to deliver data management as a service.”[ii] Oracle is also aggressively expanding its cloud regions and offerings. It announced its 25^th Cloud Region in San Jose last month and plans to add 11 more by July of next year.[iii]

Why the journey to cloud is better with Oracle and Equinix

Equinix and Oracle have a long-standing partnership helping businesses move to the cloud. Last year we expanded our collaboration to provide more private cloud onramps to Oracle Cloud, through Equinix Fabric™ . Today Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect is directly available in 13 Equinix International Business Exchange™ (IBX^®) data center metros across three regions:

• Four Asia-Pacific metros: Melbourne, Osaka, Sydney and Tokyo
• Four EMEA metros: Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, and Zurich
• Five Americas metros: Los Angeles, São Paulo, Silicon Valley (San Jose), Toronto and Washington, D.C.

And to serve customers in the public sector, two Americas locations (Culpeper and Washington, D.C.) and two EMEA locations (London and Manchester) are government grade facilities with compliance certifications from the U.S. and U.K. governments respectively.[iv] Additionally, Equinix extends reach to Oracle Cloud via FastConnect with Equinix Fabric in 33 other metros globally. Equinix Fabric enables virtual deployment of a private, dedicated connection to network providers, cloud service providers and other infrastructure. Even in metros with no native Oracle Cloud presence, enterprises can access these service providers via Equinix Fabric. Together Oracle and Equinix help you reduce deployment time for Oracle Cloud services such as Autonomous Datawarehouse (ADW) and Autonomous Transaction Processing (ATP) – in more geographies than any other provider via FastConnect with Equinix Fabric.

Be smart about where you put your database in a hybrid multicloud world

There are three strategic use cases ideally suited for an Equinix Oracle deployment:

Use case 1: Multicloud

An organization wants to use Oracle Cloud and other clouds for scenarios such as cloud-to-cloud migration, on-premises connectivity to multiple clouds or multicloud split stack architecture. Oracle FastConnect with Equinix Fabric delivers fast, reliable and secure interconnection to and between Oracle Cloud and other cloud services on Platform Equinix^® worldwide.

For example, an internet service provider wanted to use Oracle’s Autonomous Database without deploying any new physical infrastructure. Equinix Fabric enabled the company to easily shift its database to Oracle Cloud for Autonomous Database in London while keeping its applications on AWS. By leveraging Network Edge on Platform Equinix^® and a remote connection to Oracle Cloud via FastConnect with Equinix Fabric, the company was able to migrate its application workloads from AWS Dublin to AWS London, placing them next to the database. Proximate, private, low-latency connectivity between the production applications on AWS and database on Oracle Cloud ensures optimal performance.

The video below demonstrates the steps for interconnecting AWS Cloud to Oracle Cloud for a split stack architecture in the same metro using Network Edge:

Use case 2: Hybrid cloud

In this case, a business is running its database on an on-premises Oracle Exadata Database Machine and its applications in public clouds and needs low-latency connection between them. Scenarios can include hybrid cloud transport, performance-sensitive applications, secure WAN connectivity or geo-redundant business continuity.

As a case in point, U.S. Silica, a diversified minerals and logistics company, needed to transform its IT for better performance and scalability and also wanted a dedicated disaster recovery (DR) solution for business continuity. Its partner, BIAS, helped the company migrate its on-premises JD Edwards ERP and supporting databases to Oracle Cloud. BIAS then engaged Datatility (an Equinix partner) to establish connectivity between its eastern and western locations. By leveraging Oracle Cloud Infrastructure FastConnect with ECX Fabric, Datatility was able to create a high-performing, scalable, secure and interconnected multi-region cloud infrastructure on Platform Equinix in hours instead of months. As a result, U.S. Silica gained 10x improvement in monthly financial reporting runtimes and a complete DR solution.

Use case 3: Cloud Adjacency

In some cases, a business may want to colocate their Oracle Exadata Database Machine to gain proximity to clouds for optimal performance or for data sovereignty/compliance reasons. For example, Fung Group wanted to move its on-premises Oracle database to Oracle Exadata Database Machine for better performance while shifting its applications to Microsoft Azure. By colocating its Oracle Exadata Database Machine on Platform Equinix, Fung Group was able to create a cloud adjacent architecture with high-performance, direct interconnection between its Oracle Exadata and cloud providers on ECX Fabric. ECX Fabric was also used to conduct backup between Singapore and Hong Kong in support of DR.

Learn more about how you can achieve a successful enterprise cloud migration with Equinix and Oracle and register for the webinar to find out how to Optimize Your Oracle Database for a Multicloud World.

[i] Oracle, 2020: Oracle’s Top 10 Cloud Predictions.

[ii] Oracle, Oracle Autonomous Database Strategy, July 2020.

[iii] Oracle, Oracle Cloud Expands with Launch of San Jose Region, Aug 2020.

[iv] Oracle, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for Public Sector Industry Viewpoints: The Need for Compliance and Governance and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Government Cloud.