Introduction
Customers moving their workloads from on-premises to the Cloud want to take advantage of the best features and lowest prices each public cloud provider offers alongside other benefits. Microsoft’s customers usually prefer to run their applications in Azure while continuing to rely on Oracle Database for data management using Oracle Autonomous Database and Exadata Cloud Service in OCI for best high availability, scalability, and reliability.
So, Oracle and Microsoft partnered back in 2019 to bring OCI and Azure closer together and simplify multicloud deployments. Let’s see what happened since then and what is coming soon.
2019 – Oracle Interconnect for Azure
Oracle Interconnect for Azure provides a private, secure, and direct connection between OCI and Azure. It is a one-time setup within minutes without involving any 3rd party network service provider. The setup can even be automated via Terraform.
The low latency of around 2ms between OCI and Azure makes it possible to run enterprise workloads across the clouds connecting any services available in OCI and Azure. Customers are charged for ports per hour for Oracle FastConnect and Azure ExpressRoute depending on the bandwidth, while there are no ingress and egress charges.
Customers use the Azure Portal to create and manage Azure services and the OCI Console to create and manage Oracle Cloud services.
When it started, the service was available in four regions. Meanwhile, it has grown up to 12 regions and more to come.
In case of any issues, customers can raise a service request to Oracle or Microsoft, and both cloud providers will collaborate to provide a solution.
2022 – Oracle Database Service for Azure
Even though setting up Oracle Interconnect for Azure is quite easy, customers wanted to just create an Oracle Database in OCI and use it without dealing with any network settings, bandwidth, and associated costs.
Oracle Database Service for Azure (ODSA), or OracleDB for Azure, was introduced and provided an Oracle-managed network interconnectivity between OCI and Azure based on Oracle Interconnect for Azure. Additionally, a Multicloud Portal running in OCI with Azure’s look and feel is provided to create and manage Oracle Databases in OCI. Customers can provision and use Oracle Databases in OCI as if they were Azure resources. Pay attention to the URL multicloud.oracle.com:
This is NOT the Azure Portal. It just looks like the Azure Portal to provide Azure users the same Azure UI and user experience. Oracle Databases are still physically created in OCI data centers.
OracleDB for Azure is available in the same regions as Oracle Interconnect for Azure, providing low latency and Oracle-manged network bandwidth at no additional cost.
Additionally, metrics and events are sent from OCI to Azure Application Insights and Azure Log Analytics so you have them alongside your application’s logs in one place to simplify monitoring and troubleshooting.
2023 – Oracle Database@Azure
The 2ms low latency provided by Oracle Interconnect for Azure and Oracle Database Service for Azure is suitable for nearly any application. However, mission-critical applications might still require microsecond latency between the application and database to ensure high performance.
Oracle Database@Azure will provide this capability by delivering Oracle Database Services running on OCI, colocated in Azure data centers. Exadata Cloud Service running Oracle RAC will be the first available service providing High Availability and extreme performance directly in Azure. Further services are expected to be available rapidly.
The service was announced just before Oracle CloudWorld 2023, and previews are expected to be available in early 2024 in regions in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, with plans to expand globally.
This time, the resources will be provisioned through the real Microsoft Azure Portal.
From the commercial perspective, Microsoft’s customers will be able to use their Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitments (MACC) for Oracle Database@Azure. They can use the Bring Your Own License (BYOL) model or purchase license-included database services and get Oracle Support Rewards to reduce Oracle tech license support’s bill.
Conclusion
Oracle Interconnect for Azure simplified and improved multicloud network connectivity by leveraging a direct, private, and low-latency connection between OCI and Azure with no intermediate service provider required.
Oracle Database Service for Azure provides an Oracle-managed interconnect and an Azure-like user experience to further simplify multicloud deployments with the same low latency at no additional cost.
Oracle Database@Azure takes the partnership and multicloud to the next level by leveraging Oracle Cloud resources directly within Azure’s data centers – two clouds in one physical place. It offers Oracle Exadata Service running Oracle RAC with similar latency to other Azure services, purchased using Azure credits.
Database Heartbeat 