Oracle has announced the general availability of its Autonomous Database on Microsoft Azure, marking a significant stride toward dismantling the barriers between various cloud providers. This integration, part of the Oracle Database@Azure program, currently supports users in the East U.S. region and is slated for expansion into additional data centers in 2024. The platform empowers organizations to accelerate application development and seamlessly migrate on-premises workloads to the cloud.
With Oracle's Autonomous Database now integrated with Microsoft Azure, organizations will benefit from access to the Azure portal and relevant APIs. This technology leverages Real Application Clusters on Oracle’s Exadata Cloud Infrastructure, ensuring that workloads remain secure, scalable, and high-performing—all without the burden of maintenance.
Another key benefit of Oracle Autonomous Database is its resource efficiency, making it accessible for small to mid-sized businesses. The entry-level configuration utilizes just two ECPUs or computing cores, offering an affordable solution. Moreover, it supports diverse data types, including tabular relational data, documents, and vectorized data, catering to organizations exploring AI applications.
“There’s a great interest within enterprises to leverage this cutting-edge technology,” says Leo Leung, Oracle’s Vice President of Products and Strategy. “This offering also includes built-in tools for low-code application development, data modeling, and analytics processing. With decades of innovation behind it, Autonomous Database delivers robust capabilities.”
Key Benefits of the Oracle-Microsoft Integration:
- Ability to develop new cloud-native applications using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and Azure technologies, including advanced Azure development and AI services.
- Flexible options for simplifying and accelerating the migration of Oracle databases to the cloud, supported by proven tools like Oracle Zero-Downtime Migration.
- High levels of performance, scalability, and availability that align with Oracle Database and OCI pricing models.
- Integrated solutions that boast simplicity, security, and low latency between Autonomous Database and Azure services.
- Consistency with on-premises deployments of Oracle Database to minimize the need for rearchitecting solutions.
- Unified customer experience and comprehensive support from both Oracle and Microsoft.
- Streamlined purchasing, allowing customers to utilize Oracle and Microsoft licenses, commitments, and discount programs.
- Assurance of a reliable unified service and architecture, rigorously tested and supported by industry leaders.
“We’ve partnered with Microsoft for years, interconnecting our clouds,” Leung remarks. The Oracle Database@Azure is a prime example of this collaboration, delivering Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services directly through Azure. “This offering is unique; few cloud providers extend their capabilities into another cloud. Close physical proximity enables us to meet critical use cases requiring sub-millisecond latency,” he adds.
For business leaders, Autonomous Database offers significant opportunities, particularly for those operating within Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure. Organizations can transfer existing data to an Azure database, anonymizing and vectorizing it for enhanced security and performance. This enables them to utilize capabilities like Azure OpenAI to train AI models with enterprise data, improving knowledge bases and customer support. “The potential to generate insights while maintaining confidentiality has sparked considerable interest among enterprises,” concludes Leung, highlighting the synergy between Oracle’s extensive data management and Azure's service suite.
Customers interested in Oracle Autonomous Database can access it through a “private offer” in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.
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