- Microsoft and Oracle have announced a cloud interoperability partnership where they will be connected over a direct network connection
- Oracle and Microsoft also announced unified and access management tools via a unified single sign-on experience and automated user provisioning to manage resources across Azure and Oracle Cloud
Recently, Microsoft and Oracle announced a cloud interoperability partnership where they will be connected over a direct network connection. This will enable their customers to move their data seamlessly between the two cloud services.
“As the cloud of choice for the enterprise, with over 95% of the Fortune 500 using Azure, we have always been first and foremost focused on helping our customers thrive on their digital transformation journeys,” said Microsoft’s EVP of the Cloud and AI division Scott Guthrie. “With Oracle’s enterprise expertise, this alliance is a natural choice for us as we help our joint customers accelerate the migration of enterprise applications and databases to the public cloud.”
This partnership is interesting considering Microsoft and Oracle are fierce rivals. But this deal is mutually beneficial because Oracle can reach more people for its Autonomous Database, Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Oracle Retail, and Oracle JD Edwards platforms on Azure while still tapping into an Oracle database in the Oracle Cloud. And Microsoft gets access to more workloads. Azure users can still run Oracle databases in Azure.
As of right now, the direct interconnection between the two clouds is limited to the Azure US East and Oracle’s Ashburn data center. Plus the two companies plan to expand the alliance to other regions in the future.
“The Oracle Cloud offers a complete suite of integrated applications for sales, service, marketing, human resources, finance, supply chain, and manufacturing, plus highly automated and secure Generation 2 infrastructure featuring the Oracle Autonomous Database,” added Don Johnson — EVP of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). “Oracle and Microsoft have served enterprise customer needs for decades. With this partnership, our joint customers can migrate their entire set of existing applications to the cloud without having to re-architect anything, preserving the large investments they have already made.”
Oracle and Microsoft also announced unified and access management tools via a unified single sign-on experience and automated user provisioning to manage resources across Azure and Oracle Cloud. And Oracle applications can use Azure Active Directory as the identity provider and for conditional access (early preview).
“The alliance between Microsoft and Oracle is welcome news as we accelerate Albertsons’ digital transformation and leverage the full value of the public cloud,” commented Anuj Dhanda — EVP and CIO at Albertsons Companies. “This will allow us to create cross-cloud solutions that optimize many of our current investments while maximizing the agility, scalability, and efficiency of the public cloud.”
There is also supported deployment of custom applications and packaged Oracle applications (JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Oracle Retail, Hyperion) on Azure with Oracle databases (RAC, Exadata, Autonomous Database) deployed in Oracle Cloud. And the same Oracle applications will also be certified to run on Azure with Oracle databases in Oracle Cloud.
“As we look to bring our omnichannel experience closer together and transform the technology platform that powers the Gap Inc. brands, the collaboration between Oracle and Microsoft will make it easier for us to scale and deliver capabilities across channels,” noted Gap CIO Sally Gilligan. “The interoperability between Azure and Oracle Cloud allows us to deploy Oracle or custom-built applications on Azure and Oracle databases on Oracle Cloud.”
It’s also worth mentioning that there is a collaborative support model to help IT organizations deploy new capabilities while enabling them to leverage existing customer support relationships and processes.
“At Halliburton, we have a long history of running both Oracle and Microsoft technologies for our most critical applications. Our deep experience with these two strategic vendors has yielded consistently stable and performant application deployments,” explained Halliburton SVP and CIO Ken Braud. “This alliance gives us the flexibility and ongoing support to continue leveraging our standard architectures, while allowing us to focus on generating business outcomes that maximize returns for our shareholders.”
Oracle Database is going to continue to be certified to run in Azure on various operating systems including Windows Server and Oracle Linux.
