According to Gartner’s survey of public cloud users, 81% of respondents are working with two or more cloud providers. Like many agencies, your agency might be heavily invested in a single cloud service provider. That cloud service provider can do many things well and other things mediocrely. So, what do you do, compromise? Not anymore. The cloud industry is changing course, and you can benefit.
In the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy, U.S. Federal CIO, Suzan Kent states:
“Industries that are leading in technology innovation have also demonstrated that hybrid and multicloud environments can be effective and efficient for managing workloads. As a result, the Cloud Smart Strategy encourages agencies to think of cloud as an array of solutions that offer many capabilities and management options to enhance mission and service delivery.”
Cloud First to Cloud Smart. Some common table stakes for a Cloud Smart strategy include the following problems:
Need for consolidation
Closing data centers
Requiring better availability
Effective SLAs
Security
Data center optimization
Efficient utilization
Why not leave these aspects for Oracle to handle? We also take care of the physical aspects: power, space, and cooling. You can focus on consuming needed resources to deliver services. Having multicloud strategy makes your Cloud Smart strategy smarter.
Right now, your journey to the cloud has probably already begun. You’ve already moved your ‘low-hanging fruit’ to the cloud. What about mission-critical applications, such as Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS), PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, or Siebel? If we consider these applications and the applications that depend on Oracle Databases, we can put them into a category of applications and databases that are more effective and efficient when hosted in the Oracle Government Cloud.
Imagine not requiring changes or reengineering your architecture. You can keep your current workloads as they are. Your Oracle applications and databases should be your next targets for migration to the cloud or transitioning to Oracle Government Cloud. They’re not ‘low hanging fruit,’ more mission-critical applications. Moving mission-critical applications is a step toward maturing your cloud strategy. With the Oracle Government Cloud your workloads run on NVME storage, you can run on bare metal servers or dedicated hosts. With performance, it’s only guaranteed to improve. One of our Oracle EBS customers saw a 10-time improvement in performance by moving to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
The migration process can be as easy as backing up your on-premises Oracle applications to Object Storage and then restoring from Object Storage. Everything remains the same and all your customizations will follow.
Yes, you can keep it simple and not change anything in architecture, and yes, simply lift and shift. However, this change can also be an opportunity for modernization. When you use Oracle Database Cloud services, you’re really using Oracle’s Platform as a Service (PaaS). The Oracle Government Cloud has multiple database deployment options in PaaS form. This option helps your agency gain efficiencies in terms of management and performance. If you’re a current Exadata customer, we offer Exadata as a Service in our compliant government regions.
Not ready to move your production environment yet? One risk averse way is to start with your dev, test, and pre-PROD environments. Those environments have to exist somewhere too, and it doesn’t have to be in the same location as your other product environments. This strategy offers low risk for your multicloud move. Some Oracle customers have done the opposite, moving production Oracle applications into Oracle Government Cloud and keeping other environments in their current cloud service providers. This strategy works too. The point is to have multiple clouds and to select a cloud service provider that helps you run your applications most efficiently and effectively with the least amount of disruption.
Another easy way to accomplish a multicloud strategy is to place disaster recovery resources into a different cloud provider. This option comes with some challenges, such as interoperability between cloud providers. Not all cloud providers are designed the same. The disaster recovery strategy doesn’t have to be cloud provider to cloud provider. It can be on-premises to cloud provider. Fortunately, for Oracle applications disaster recovery, it can be as simple as syncing your data in the application tier with rsync and syncing the database with Oracle Data Guard.
The previous steps are only a few toward the building blocks shaping your multicloud strategy. More considerations include achieving competitive pricing and the most emphasized Cloud Smart guidance, avoiding vendor lock-in. Oracle encourages customers to do their total cost of ownership or cost estimates as part of their considerations for implementing a multicloud strategy.
Although we’d prefer all your workloads to be in the Oracle Government Cloud, you can start with dev, test, pre-PROD, or disaster recovery, then progress with production. This strategy can combat Cloud Smart challenges. Your multicloud strategy doesn’t have to be limited to Oracle applications. You’re looking for applications that run effectively and efficiently in Oracle Government Cloud. The quickest way to observe those efficiencies is to take advantage of Oracle Cloud Database services in the Government Cloud. If you don’t have Oracle applications, choose applications that depend on Oracle databases. You might have already moved your Oracle database dependent applications to another cloud service provider. Consider moving them over to Oracle Government Cloud to take advantage of our services, such as Oracle Cloud Database services.
Leave it to Oracle to absorb all the capital expenditures and optimize the data center. Your agency should concentrate on providing the best experience for United States citizens, and not be in the business of managing data centers.
We know that every use case is different. The only way to know if Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is right for you is to try it. You can select either the Oracle Cloud Free Tier or a 30-day free trial in our commercial regions, which includes US$300 in credits to get you started with a range of services, including compute, storage, and networking. The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure regions dedicated for the Government consist of FedRAMP High Federal and Civilian authorized regions and IL5 Department of Defense (DoD) authorized regions. Consult your Oracle sales representative for a proof of concept in the appropriate region, if you prefer the Oracle Government Cloud.
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