See what powers our cloud regions: A look inside an Oracle Cloud data center

January 19, 2022 | 4 minute read
Alex Cruft
Principal Program Manager
Jonathan Hay
Director, Product & Industries
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You might be wondering where the physical racks and servers are located or how they are secured—and we get it. We understand the importance of knowing that your applications are physically and logically secure and highly available. For this reason, we want to provide you with a look inside our world-class data centers and give you an idea of how they operate.

But first, let’s back up a moment and look at Oracle Cloud regions and what they are.

Oracle Cloud regions

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is physically hosted in regions and availability domains. A region is a localized geographic area, and an availability domain is one or more data centers located within a region. Each region is independent of other regions and can be separated by vast distances—across countries or even continents. Oracle Cloud regions support every OCI service and feature and are available to customers anywhere in the world. Each region is made up of one or more data centers to support availability and redundancy within the region. You choose the cloud region when you set up your tenancy, and your content is hosted within that region unless you move your content outside of the region.

A map of OCI's regions across the world.

Oracle Cloud data centers

The key building block of our Oracle Cloud regions is to create availability domains by utilizing one or more of our data centers. Every data center incorporates the security and built-in resiliency that enable OCI to run its services that host your applications.

But what does this concept really look like? We’ve had many customers ask to see inside our data centers, so we’ve put together a video that gives a behind-the-scenes look at the data centers that power OCI.

In the video, you can see examples of the security, scale, and built-in resiliency of our globally distributed Oracle Cloud data centers.

Protected by multiple layers of security

Critically, all our data centers must integrate the security that Oracle customers expect. Our physical security posture relies upon multiple layers of security, starting before even entering the building. All our data centers incorporate external barriers that only allow entrance to individuals who require access.

Inside the building, you must follow strict security standards and are subject to multiple layers of authorization and authentication. You’re also monitored by the 24/7 security services, which include CCTV monitoring at all critical entry and exit points.

Built to scale for all workloads

OCI is continuously adding more regions to enable customers to scale and grow their capacity. This accelerated growth is strategically designed to deliver the performance and scalability to run your most demanding enterprise applications.

Our goal is to offer regions near our customers to minimize latency and meet their data sovereignty requirements, while providing true disaster protection with geographically distributed cloud regions in every country. For this reason, we’re rapidly expanding our regional footprint and plan to have at least 44 cloud regions by the end of 2022.

Industry-leading resiliency controls

Keeping our data centers up and running is mission critical. For this reason, our OCI data centers align with Uptime Institute and Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) ANSI/TIA-942-A Tier 3 or Tier 4, enabling OCI to be available and meet our financially backed SLAs.

Oracle Cloud data centers are equipped with concurrently maintainable power to support ongoing operations. Our equipment is regularly tested to ensure availability and resiliency. This includes the generators that provide backup power to the data center, which are constantly refueled.

Automated end-to-end environmental monitoring

To ensure longevity and prevent any issues with OCI all temperature and humidity within data halls are controlled and monitored per industry standards. This setup includes having preaction, zoned, dry-pipe sprinklers to protect our equipment in a fire, while preventing any water leakage. Our data halls are monitored 24/7 to detect any early warnings and prevent downtime.

Sustainability

Oracle believes in a sustainable computing platform in the cloud, starting by having OCI data centers operate in a way that is efficient, renewable, and aligned with the circular economy.

We also have a goal of powering OCI with 100% renewable energy by 2025. We can accomplish this goal through driving renewable energy adoption, improving water efficiency, and attaining environmental certifications.

Look inside

We’re deeply committed to providing our customers the best possible cloud infrastructure. If you haven’t already clicked play, we encourage you to take a quick look into the infrastructure that powers our Oracle Cloud regions.

With the global scale, security, and built-in resiliency, our data centers are designed to keep your applications running and your data safe.

To learn more about our Oracle Cloud Infrastructure regions, visit Oracle Cloud Regions: Data Centers Reimagined or contact one of our representatives.

Alex Cruft

Principal Program Manager

Jonathan Hay

Director, Product & Industries


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