Summary: Probably the most noteworthy development from Oracle OpenWorld 2019 from a cloud perspective was the Oracle/VMware tie-up.
Details: The partnership was clearly important to Oracle and it was given space during Larry Ellison’s keynote. Through the partnership, workloads can be lifted and shifted to Oracle Cloud, using existing VMware-based tools and existing operational procedures. Alternatively, customers can connect their VMware environment (on-premise) and connect to Oracle Analytics Cloud or Oracle Autonomous Database using Oracle Cloud Interconnect. The basis of this capability is a new system that enables customers to shift VMware workloads to Oracle’s cloud without rewriting any code.
VMware details: Ellison claims only Oracle Cloud allows customers to use native VMware tools, which would appear to be false as the AWS partnership allows the same. But there are differences between VMware’s approach with Oracle and AWS. With AWS, VMware provides the service and is the point of contact for the customer. In this case, it is Oracle that provide the services. That said, Oracle is a long way from the first cloud provider to put forward the idea of running corporate workloads in a similar way off and on-premise. The use case sited by Oracle for its VMware offering features financial institution HDFC. The CIO claimed he will (it seems he is not using the service yet) be able to deploy his VMware application fleet in Oracle Cloud without re-architecting applications or re-building well-established processes. The bottom line is that the thinking is similar to the AWS/VMware use cases we heard about a few weeks ago.
Angle: Oracle has been very active this year with its cloud infrastructure business as it faces the realities of a shifting IT landscape. The recent interoperability partnership with Azure was an interesting and bold move that aligns interests in the enterprise space and offers a unique proposition – the ability to combine tools and infrastructure from different clouds in a single architecture. The VMware partnership is similarly motivated by a desire to serve the enterprise (a segment Oracle and Microsoft both want to lock down in the cloud). But this development is probably more about what VMware is doing. VMware has taken a strictly agnostic approach to cloud and is looking to make it as easy as possible to run VMware no matter what the underlying infrastructure (public cloud or not). Oracle making this happen gets them into this value chain, but it is not coming (in fact, it is playing catch up) in first or offering anything overly different or compelling. It is merely ensuring it has a shot at the VMware value chain, which is an important part of the enterprise market it needs to get as much of as possible to stay relevant.
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