THE LATEST EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENTS IN CLOUD COMPUTING FOR ORACLE
Loïc le Guisquet, Executive Vice President, EMEA Region: Oracle has opened two new data centres in Germany to meet customer requirements for cloud security and privacy. Loïc Le Guisquet, Oracle Executive Vice President for the EMEA region, announced this during his press conference at Oracle OpenWorld.
One of those data centres will be located in Frankfurt and the other in Munich. This is a response to the very strong demand in Germany for this type of service as well as to customer questions surrounding security and proximity. Le Guisquet said: “I want to make sure we are able to respond to that level of demand.”
While many cloud technology vendors are tiptoeing around the question of data privacy in the wake of ex-CIA contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations, Oracle is willing to discuss the question openly in order to serve the best interests of its customers.
Oracle runs 19 data centres around the globe, including (now) six in the European Union. The investment in this expansion of Oracle’s data centre footprint is part of a growing investment in cloud. Oracle continues expanding its focus on this area, and its ongoing investments
are about getting cloud as close to the customer as possible.
The new German data centres are covering a very wide range of Oracle’s cloud solutions, including Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning Cloud, Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud, and Oracle Customer Experience Cloud.
Several factors play a role in data security and privacy, including who has access to the data and operational processes. “The location of the data is only one factor in that whole conversation,” commented Le Guisquet. “It’s an important one-one that people focus on, and one that is relevant. We opened data centres in Germany because we feel that’s going to help respond to customers in Germany.”
It may be precisely because of this close attention to customer needs that Oracle’s EMEA region was able to achieve an astounding nine percent growth with cloud growing more than 80 percent in the fiscal quarter ending September 2014, despite a challenging geopolitical climate throughout the region.
KEY NEWS AT OPENWORLD FOR ORACLE’S CLOUD PLATFORM
Thomas Kurian, Executive Vice President, Product Development (Courtesy of Hartmann Studios): The key cloud platform announcements were covered by Thomas Kurian, Oracle’s Executive Vice President of product development, in his keynote speech. He began by discussing three major trends in business and culture- big data, mobility, and the cloud. He then detailed and demoed new products and services from Oracle that enhance customers’ ability to make use of all three.
Kurian introduced a new set of tools called Oracle Big Data Discovery, which allows database managers and engineers to work more effectively with Hadoop, a data management platform for the structured and unstructured data generally referred to as big data. “It’s the visual face of Hadoop,” Kurian said.
Hadoop is a big data platform for many companies, but can be problematic because it requires expertise in a programming model called MapReduce. Oracle Big Data Discovery lets users profile, explore, and analyse Hadoop data, and do prediction and correlation. “With Oracle Big Data Discovery, you will be able to explore and find patterns and problems with your data,” Kurian said.
Oracle Big Data Discovery combined with Oracle Big Data SQL- a recently introduced toolset for working with data across relational and big data systems using Structured Query Language- represents a powerful combination of technologies for supporting a truly effective big
data strategy.
Kurian also introduced an important addition to Oracle’s cloud services, Oracle Mobile Cloud. The service enables the development and deployment of mobile applications on multiple operating systems and device platforms, Kurian explained.
Oracle Mobile Cloud is composed of three sophisticated parts: a mobile application framework, a single sign-on capability, and a security container, which protects corporate data running on mobile devices. “The value that we offer our customers is an end-to-end mobile development platform,” Kurian said.
Kurian referenced several other technology developments by Oracle:
· New cloud services: Oracle Integration Cloud Service, which enables SaaS-to-SaaS and SaaS-to-on-premises integration, and Oracle Process Cloud Service, which provides cloud-based business process management (BPM) capabilities.
· Oracle’s high-performance in-memory database and Oracle Business Intelligence Suite are now available on Oracle Exalytics.
· A new interface for Oracle Business Intelligence Suite that enables
users to “mash up” personal data with corporate data for improved visual analysis.
Kurian closed the show by reiterating details of Oracle’s momentum in cloud computing:
19 tier-4 data centres, 30,000 devices, 62 million people a day, 23 billion transactions a day, and close to 400 petabytes of data under management.
“More people want to use Oracle software without having to run Oracle software,” Kurian said in reference to Oracle’s expanding line of SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS cloud services.
SAAS ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM OPENWORLD
Ian Tickle, Vice President EMEA, SaaS Solutions: In today’s modern, digital world, businesses and organisations rely on technology to help them run their back-office operations, as well as customer-facing functions such as sales and marketing. To help them remain truly competitive, Oracle offers a complete portfolio of Oracle Applications Cloud that provides modern business practices for virtually every function in the enterprise. Oracle Applications Cloud Release 9, which is our most recent, is personalised, connected, and secure, designed to help our customers achieve their most critical business goals”, says Ian Tickle, Vice President EMEA, SaaS Solutions . Oracle Applications Cloud Release 9, includes significant additions and updates to its full portfolio of software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings:
· Oracle HCM Cloud – the latest version delivers a single and simplified HCM cloud experience for all employees and managers.
· Oracle Analytics Cloud – a new offering, available now, combining business intelligence, big data analytics, and embedded SaaS analytics.
· Oracle Sales Cloud Enhancements – Release 9, which is optimised for mobile devices, helps organisations increase sales and optimise efficiency though enhanced mobility, analytics, partner relationship management, and industry-specific solutions.
· Oracle Data as a Service for Sales, a new component of the Oracle Data Cloud. Through a recently announced partnership with Dun & Bradstreet, the world’s leading source of commercial data and business insights, Oracle Cloud customers will have access to the world’s largest source of trusted B2B decision-maker data – with unmatched profile granularity- for prospecting, database validation and competitive insights.
· Oracle also announced enhancements to Oracle ERP Cloud, Oracle CX Cloud and Oracle SCM Cloud offerings.
Business technology research and advisory services firm Ventana Research awarded Oracle with the 2014 Technology Innovation Award for Business Innovation in the category of Cloud Computing, recognising the company as a pioneer that drives change and increased value for organisations. The Ventana Technology Innovation Awards, presented annually, identify the technologies that have had or have the potential to have the most striking positive impact on business and honour their providers. More information on this prestigious award can be found here.
Another key announcement at the show was the Oracle Analytics Cloud, which was referred to by Thomas Kurian in his keynote. With rapid adoption of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, accumulation of data at unprecedented rates, and growing preference for cloud-based IT deployments, data gravity is moving to the cloud. With that shift, cloud-based analytics has become paramount. Until now, however, analytics technology in the cloud and analytics for cloud-based data have been delivered piecemeal, with significant gaps. Oracle closed those gaps by announcing Oracle Analytics Cloud, a comprehensive portfolio of analytics offerings built for the cloud; deployed in the cloud; and enabling data analysis for cloud, on-premises, traditional, and big data sources.
Oracle Analytics Cloud is a comprehensive offering that delivers business intelligence and analytics for traditional data and big data. Cloud-resident technologies enable the collection, storage, preparation, and analysis of all the data assets of an organisation. Prebuilt analytic applications provide embedded real-time reporting and deep cross-functional analysis for a range of SaaS applications. Finally, mobile access and analysis is provided out of the box, so customers can access and analyse insights anytime, anywhere, with no additional development required.
Oracle also eased the journey to Cloud, with an expanded Customer 2 Cloud program, which now includes Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (Oracle ERP) and Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (Oracle EPM) customers. Oracle customers using ERP applications from Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle’s PeopleSoft, Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle’s JD Edwards World ERP and Oracle Hyperion EPM can now join Oracle Human Capital Management (Oracle HCM) and Oracle CRM customers to take advantage of the innovative program’s flexible financial models, rapid startup services, and packaged cloud integrations to confidently embrace the cloud and use it to support business transformation initiatives.
