However, I find that it’s rare for IT professionals to immediately name Oracle’s solution, despite the fact that Oracle has been in the cloud for more than a decade through Oracle On-Demand.
Oracle has strategically aligned and ensured availability of Oracle Software to its customer base by allowing the use of Oracle Software within other cloud service providers. In parallel, Oracle has developed its own cloud service for customers, providing cost effective options for organizations with a range of information technology expertise.
It can be overwhelming to talk about the cloud. There are many tool, requirement, and terminology differences among vendors. In this post, I discuss Oracle Cloud and attempt to demystify Oracle Cloud service offerings.
Understanding Data Regions
Oracle’s cloud solutions are set up in Data Regions, which directly correspond to Oracle Data Center locations. When selecting a region, it is important to pick the region that offers the service you are looking to purchase along with the closest proximity to the intended Oracle Cloud user community. Not all services are available in every region. .Sometimes, this is due to certain restrictions or guidelines.
Currently, there are four main geographical regions:
Some regions have multiple data centers. In any case, the Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) are mapped to the appropriate service list available in each region according to the Oracle Cloud website. Each cloud account can sign up for multiple regions to provide the required capability desired by the cloud solution.
What is IaaS?
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) allows you to move all on-premise traditional applications to hardware in an Oracle Data Center. In doing so, you get high performance and reliability along with a simplified cost structure and pricing that allows you to scale your applications based on growth.
On-premise data centers require an initial investment and also management responsibilities covering space allocation, maintenance, continuity of operations (COOP), power, software licensing, and security. They also require substantial manpower to support data center operations.
Through this approach, applications can be migrated to your IaaS environment safely in the cloud as long as your licensing and support for those applications permit doing so. IaaS has many different services available that also work together to provide a reliable and stable solution. These services include:
What is PaaS?
Platform as a Service (PaaS) builds on top of IaaS offerings with a combination of integrated Oracle and open-source technologies. The different offerings include:
PaaS is also offered on-premise for those organizations that have data and security guidelines that do not allow for off-premise cloud use. There are so many offerings within each cloud solution! Below is a high level overview of what is available in each:
What is SaaS?
SaaS is complete software solution available within the cloud. There is a variety of applications available that allow companies to use products and services for their specific market without requiring on-premise hardware and software expertise. Some of those markets are:
Each market has a diverse set of tools and applications available to provide a solution for IT operations. The Cloud Marketplace for SaaS offers more than 4,300 different applications and approximately 180 service providers to help your business integrate your SaaS.
So, by this point, everyone wants to know about pricing. I’ll say this. In my experience, Oracle Cloud offers a competitive low-cost cloud where you only pay for those services that you use and some services are included automatically. Once you sign up for an Oracle Cloud account, you have access to all eligible IaaS and PaaS services. You can pay as you go or save money with the pay in advance for a locked in on an annual basis based on estimated monthly usage, which is called the Monthly Flex Plan.
To estimate your cost, Oracle has developed an online web based tool to assist in figuring out your cost for IaaS and PaaS. For SaaS pricing, you will need to contact an Oracle Sales Representative for an accurate quote.
As with other cloud service providers, there is so much information available online for Oracle Cloud that it can instantly become overwhelming for even some of the savviest tech individuals. Hopefully, this overview helps you to understand Oracle Cloud basics. If you have any further questions, my team or I would be happy to hear from you.
This blog post will provide a high-level overview of the steps required for adding a new F5 BIG-IP device to an existing device group and syncing the group configuration to the new device. The steps listed below assume each BIG-IP device is of the same series and model, running the same software version, and therefore fully compatible.
It is possible to add a device of a different series and/or model to the device group and sync the configuration between them. However, if you use the embedded HSM to store your digital certificates and keys, the new BIG-IP device must be of the same series as the current device to sync that information. Otherwise, you will have to add your certificates and keys manually to the new device upon initial configuration, and each time you renew or add new certificates and/or keys. Therefore, any attempt to deploy such a configuration may not be possible and is not advisable.
Oracle Access Management (OAM) is Oracle’s solution for user management. The software is part of the Fusion Middleware Infrastructure family and can be integrated with both Oracle and non-Oracle software. OAM provides an enterprise-level platform that delivers user authentication and single sign-on (SSO) capabilities in a simple web-based console. Access Manager SSO allows for entities to access multiple applications after authentication and reduces the need for multiple logins.
This is the second blog post in a two-part series examining test automation software. This blog post focuses on lessons learned for finding the right software product for your organization. We recommend you also read our first post, which is dedicated to understanding the process for moving from manual to automated testing.