Oracle Cloud

Oracle Cloud is a public cloud which proposes the cloud services covering SaaS solutions ("the software as service"), PaaS ("the platform as service") and IaaS ("infrastructure as service").

2017

About 1000 applications of SaaS and 50 PaaS and IaaS services

For May, 2017 Oracle Cloud provides about 1000 applications SaaS and 50 services PaaS and IaaS a corporate class to customers more than from 195 countries worldwide and daily supports 55 billion transactions.

Oracle Cloud supports new environments of cloud computing, the existing environments and hybrid circles and also communities of developers, all types of workloads and data.

The organizations can use services in Oracle Cloud cloud placed in their own data center, having selected offers from the Oracle Cloud at Customer portfolio and also through partners from specific regions – and everywhere under control of professionals of Oracle Cloud.

Expansion of the European cluster of data centers Oracle Cloud in Germany

On May 16, 2017 the Oracle corporation announced expansion of the European cluster of data centers Oracle Cloud EU Region in Germany. The IaaS services provided from the centers in the territory of Germany allow the organizations to create and move crucial workloads to a cloud.

To 3 apartment 2017 of financial year the total revenues of Oracle from cloud services without requirements of GAAP grew by 71% and were 1.3 billion dollars of Oracle Cloud EU Region in Germany is created based on earlier announced Oracle Cloud UK Region and planned to putting into operation in the second half of 2017.

"Our clients and partners in the EU and Germany trust many years Oracle Cloud the business and crucial workloads, – Thomas Kurian, the president of Oracle on development comments. – The Oracle Cloud EU Region expansion in Germany will mean the offer of the best cloud services, not only our leading SaaS solutions, but also new solutions of PaaS and IaaS. Oracle will offer users of cloud services in the EU the highest quality, availability, management and support of the broadest range of corporate applications from any cloud platform".

The Oracle Cloud EU Region expansion in Germany includes three high-speed DPCs - the Domain of Availability (Availability Domains, AD), located in Frankfurt and interconnected by network infrastructure and uniform policy of providing otkazo-and disaster tolerance. Their work is not influenced in any way by potential failures as they have no uniform points of failure and reserve each other. This differentiated architectural approach and also Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) technologies provide the high level of protection against failures. Availability Domains are deeply integrated into Oracle Cloud Platform that facilitates use and eliminates possible difficulties at creation of IT architecture of high availability.

From now on Oracle begins to provide to clients in the European region a full range of cloud services, including SaaS and new opportunities of PaaS and IaaS for support of their transition to a cloud. Among the companies which already use Oracle Cloud services in Germany, such known brands as Global Drinks, Lufthansa Cargo AG and Mövenpick.

"Cloud computing of Oracle allows the companies to develop new services, to offer clients the new service level conforming to requirements of a digital era and to enter the new markets. These investments in Germany show our readiness to offer unsurpassed, most modern technology infrastructure there and then where and when it is necessary for our clients. It will be especially important in the light of transition of the companies to a cloud taking into account the forthcoming adoption of General regulations of the EU about personal data protection", – the vice president and the regional manager of Oracle Germany Frank Obermeier explains.

"We work with clients from the EU and other regions of the world, helping them to find the solution for acceleration of migration on a cloud using modern services SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, – Tim Jennings, the top analyst on corporate IT of Ovum company notes. – The Oracle EU Region expansion in Germany will provide to the organizations a full range of cloud services at the same level of corporate services, security and availability to which they got used, using the technologies unrolled locally".

"During the work with the modern Oracle IaaS platform in DPC in the USA we were deeply impressed by its high calculating capacity and extremely low indicator of cross-network delay, – Gary Mawdsley, one of founders of AnzenData notes. – We are very glad that will earn Oracle Cloud EU Region soon. It opens for Anzen the second large region – the second continent which is very important for integrity and legitimacy of the product Anzen. The concept and detailed plans of Oracle concerning a cloud platform will help to improve further strategy and the products Anzen".

"As for workloads of our clients, scalable performance in a cloud is provided at the expense of network capabilities and architecture of storage. In both of these areas modern IaaS-services Oracle offer our clients HPC Cloud significant improvement of a ratio "price performance", – Jamil Appa, one of founders and the director of Zenotech notes.

2015: Ex-employee's revelations: Oracle imposes to clients cloud products

In July, 2015 it became known that Oracle imposes sales of cloud products even to those companies which do not need these solutions and do not want to purchase them. Told journalists its former employee Craig Guarente about aggressive policy of the American company.

According to him, clients of Oracle, persons interested to make changes to the contract (for example, to increase number of users of licenses or to add new services), face so-called audit of the agreement within which the American corporation can make a complaint on non-performance of terms of agreement and force to purchase its commercial cloud products as a punishment measure.

Oracle imposes sales of cloud products even to those companies which do not need these solutions and do not want to purchase them

In case of refusal the client risks to lose an opportunity to use software of Oracle within 30 days. In many cases transition from solutions of the company to others is very problematic as on it years can leave. So the customer is forced to follow conditions of vendor.

It is noted that audit of any actions inappropriate to the set requirements can cause discontent of Oracle. As a result the producer forces the guilty companies to sign long-term contracts on the products Oracle Cloud even if the client does not work with cloud services and does not need them.

According to Guarente, sales managers of Oracle receive for such imposed contracts seven times higher assignments in comparison with other products. Oracle did not begin to deny the similar scheme of awarding, but at the same time refrained from informative comments, having confined to the following phrase: "We provide the systems of incentive awards".

Craig Guarente worked in Oracle within 16 years, during this time it climbed a career ladder to the global vice president who was responsible for contracts, business methods and questions of audit. In 2011 it founded Palisade Compliance company which renders advisory services in the field of management of program assets of Oracle.

According to Guarente, till 2015 Oracle did not show high activity regarding imposing of cloud products. In 2015 the company already several times used this sales method, declared its former high-ranking employee, without having specified names of clients which were forced to be signed for cloud proposals of the producer.^[1]

2013

Updates for Oracle ERP Cloud

On October 14, 2013 the Oracle corporation announced release of updating for the Oracle ERP Cloud service which is a part of cloud services of Oracle Cloud.

The updated solutions are already available to clients.

Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Cloud offers a complex of business applications within SaaS model.

Oracle ERP Cloud as a part of Oracle Cloud represents the integrated complex in structure:

• Oracle Financials Cloud,
• Oracle Procurement Cloud,
• Oracle Project Portfolio Management Cloud
• Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud.

For Oracle Financials Cloud (management of finance) functional improvements are implemented:

• the platform for formation of multidimensional reports — uniform data source provides formation of the complex reporting on the basis of the financial information obtained in real time;
• integration into spreadsheets and means of stream scanning of documents — reducing costs for data processing and errors at information input about transactions;
• the analytical panels created based on roles and work areas — transfer of tasks, problems and deviations directly on the uniform panel for increase in employee performance;
• the scalable platform — an opportunity to process more than 200 million journal records per hour.

In Oracle Procurement Cloud (purchase management) following features are available:

• automation — reducing costs of goods and services, supply process simplification (from the choice of suppliers before accomplishment of calculations) and ensuring compliance to requirements of different regulators;
• strategic choice of suppliers and contract management — automation and standardization of processes of negotiations with suppliers for cost reduction, risk mitigation and increase in efficiency of transactions;
• purchases on the basis of self-service — providing an opportunity to normal users is easy to create requests for goods and services necessary for them at the preferred suppliers at the negotiated price that provides saving of time and money of the company;
• the portal for suppliers - represents the center of vendor interactions where they can browse the status of transactions and perform such operations as creation of the directory and drawing of accounts. The portal allows to optimize processes of vendor interaction and gives an opportunity to employees to focus on strategic objectives.

Oracle Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Cloud (project portfolio management) it is submitted by opportunities:

• managements of finance — clients have an opportunity to exceed target indicators of projects due to use of the advanced means of budgeting, cost estimation on projects, drawing of accounts and contract management;
• project implementation managements — acceleration of processes of staffing, implementation and a successful completion of projects thanks to effective management of project resources and tasks;
• social interaction — support of cooperation in real time using the built-in instruments of interaction used on social networks;
• efficiency analysis — adoption of more weighed decisions on key business trends and actions which are necessary for achievement of success.

Improvements of Oracle Supply Chain Management (SCM) Cloud (supply chain management) affected:

• global control of stocks — anticipatory control over material flows and the needs for warehouse transactions due to end-to-end process of management of stocks;
• flexible management by costs for products — integrated management of calculation of product cost — from report generation before support of decision making process;
• master data management about products — the advanced management tools master data on products with a closed loop of quality assurance, management and expansibility of data allow to create (and to optimize) an exact and complete product catalog in heterogeneous environments within all enterprise.

Action for cloud clients of SAP: the licenses Oracle Cloud for a year free of charge

In October, 2013 it became known of carrying out Oracle of a special action within which upon transition to the software (S) of Oracle the discount in the amount of annual license payments is provided to the former clients of SAP Business ByDesign.

The offer is relevant for those users who intend to use the solution Oracle ERP Cloud not less than three years and pay use of the solution for the three-year period, then the discount in the amount of the amount of a year subscription is applied to them.

However, the attractive offer of Oracle contains also some exceptions listed on the web page of the stock in small print. So, the companies occupied in the field of IT services, providing services of integration or providing special trainings will not be able to use a discount.

The three-year usage contract Oracle ERP Cloud is "obligatory and indissoluble", and it means that those customers who for one reason or another after time will want to replace the solution with competing will fall into quite difficult situation or at all to refuse it.

It is interesting that recently also special programs of "migration" for the former clients of ByDesign offered vendors of NetSuite and Kenandy. Such marketing enthusiasm is explained by the fact that in the fall of 2013 SAP announced curtailment of further work on a cloud solution of ByDesign. And though the German company assured that it will continue to support and to actively advance the solution in full, after all it means that no significant updates of the solution in the future are expected.

According to the representative of SAPVishal Sikka, critical Business ByDesign update after all will continue to be released, and a command of a product it will be necessary to work for rendering to technical support to users the current version. For October, 2013 the number of clients of ByDesign made 1.1 thousand. At start of the SAP solution intended to connect 10 thousand clients by 2010.

2012: Expansion of a product portfolio

Thomas Kurian, the executive vice president of Oracle for product development, provided the complex strategy of cloud computing in October, 2012 and announced that the Oracle corporation expands a portfolio of cloud services Oracle Cloud.

Seven new preliminary versions of Oracle Cloud services supplement an extensive portfolio of the Platform Services, Application Services and Social Services provided on a subscription.

The model of calculation of the price of services is based on a monthly subscription. Clients can select between contracts of a subscription which are signed for a period of a month and monthly last, and more long-term contracts.

Deployment of Oracle Cloud continues prompt rates: already over 10 thousand clients and more than 25 million end users around the world use Oracle Cloud services every day.

To help partners to accelerate an output to the market of new cloud services, Oracle also provided a new complex packet of affiliate programs and resources for Oracle Cloud.

"Cloud computing is the strategic, intensively developing direction of business of Oracle. Within this strategy the active customer support and partners is provided what crucial workloads which successfully work today in the environment of Oracle Cloud testify to, – Abhay Parasnis, the senior vice president of Oracle for development emphasized Abay. – Width of the opportunities available using Oracle Cloud, already exceeds all other cloud opportunities in the industry, and, starting these new services, Oracle continues to perform innovations, to create the market and to define the future of services of cloud computing".

Oracle announced availability of preliminary versions of seven new services Oracle Cloud:

• Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (service for planning and budgeting) – simplifies processes of financial planning, budgeting and forecasting, providing the checked advantages of the solution Oracle Hyperion Planning in the form of a cloud service on a subscription.
• Oracle Financial Reporting Cloud Service (service on financial statements) – provides creation and submission of the managerial reports prepared at the highest level and also corporate financial statements.
• Oracle Data and Insight Cloud Service (service for collecting of data, valuable to business) – provides collecting and accumulation of important intellectual data from corporate sources, social networks and various external sources for improvement of results of work of business applications (such, in particular, as CRM systems) and also the relevance of data on clients, potential clients and other contacts helps to guarantee.
• Oracle Social Sites Cloud Service (service for creation and start of social resources) – helps brands to create and advance quickly useful web resources for clients to satisfy requirements of the modern dynamic companies. Ample opportunities of editing and a powerful server part allow even to business users quickly and with ease to create and start rather difficult and large websites in work.
• Oracle Developer Cloud Service (service for development) – simplifies collective software development, providing the Wednesday based on standards which supports complete lifecycle of development process. Service provides access to control functions by control of the source code, bug tracking, continuous integration and joint work with documents.
• Oracle Storage Cloud Service (service for storage and data management) – allows the companies to save and manage digital content in a cloud environment; this service is integrated with other Oracle Cloud services which require data storage online.
• Oracle Messaging Cloud Service (service for message exchange) – provides infrastructure which provides data exchange between applications both in the environment, and out of the Oracle Cloud environment through queues of asynchronous messages.
• Compute Cloud allows clients to use effectively elastic computing resources for accomplishment of any loading in a cloud environment. The service of a corporate class this protected, completely configured provides well-tried remedies of monitoring.
• Object Storage Cloud offers users the protected storage with high readiness and means of reservation for storage of considerable volumes of unstructured data.
• Database Cloud provides full control over the selected copy of DBMS and supports any business application on Oracle Database, offering users flexibility and freedom of choice of level of the managed services provided to Oracle.
• Java Cloud offers clusters of Oracle WebLogic Server for deployment of Java applications and provides full administration control over service with the automated means of backup, recovery, deployment of packets of corrections and ensuring high readiness.
• Business Intelligence Cloud gives the chance to analyze data with use of evident, interactive dashboards for Web Wednesdays and mobile devices. Offers means of self-service for loading, modeling and data analysis and administration of business applications in a cloud environment without involvement of IT specialists.
• Documents Cloud provides the flexible self-serviced file sharing and joint work with mobile and stationary devices at reliable protection and integration into the business applications unrolled at the enterprise and in a cloud.
• Mobile Cloud simplifies corporate mobile interactions, allowing the enterprises to create any business application for any device connected to any data source, ensuring safety at the corporate level.
• Database Backup Cloud allows the companies to execute backup of Oracle Database in the Oracle Cloud environment. Besides, the opportunity of replication of backup copies with Oracle Database Backup Logging Recovery Appliance in the Oracle Cloud environment is offered.
• Billing and Revenue Management Cloud provides to the enterprises the reliable, scalable solution for billing of services of a subscription allowing to collect a regular income from new services.
• Cloud Marketplace offers the global market platform where partners can publish supplements, and clients can browse and find the new solutions allowing to satisfy requirements of their business.
• The Oracle Cloud Social Services portfolio includes Oracle Social Network, Social Marketing, Social Engagement and Monitoring and Social Data and Insight services.
• The Oracle Cloud Platform Services portfolio includes services Database Cloud, Java Cloud and Developer Cloud.
• The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Services portfolio includes Storage Cloud and Messaging Cloud services.

Notes