Oracle announces IaaS offering, private cloud, new database and Exadata X3

Oracle has launched a new Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering, a new private cloud product, an updated database and a new iteration of its Exadata server at Oracle World in San Francisco today.

CEO Larry Ellison made the announcements in his Sunday evening keynote to a room packed with over 10,000 customers, partners and press.

Oracle's new IaaS service completes its cloud offerings, complementing its SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) products.

"We didn't decide to get into cloud computing last year, we decided in 2004 when we started our Oracle Fusion project," said Ellison – perhaps slightly defensive over his firm's lateness to market with cloud services.

"It took a long time to build a complete suite of cloud applications and the all-important platform, which we call Fusion middleware. We have a huge advantage in platform solutions in the cloud because we are the number one platform company in the world," he claimed.

"In our first year of serious cloud service, we discovered it's not enough to be an applications and platform provider. People who take cloud seriously need a combination of SaaS, PaaS, and also IaaS."

He explained that Oracle customers who run SaaS and PaaS services have told the company that they need to build new applications in the cloud, and also to migrate existing applications, and the only way to meet those needs is to bring an IaaS offering to the table.

"We're the number two applications provider behind SAP," he admitted. "And the the number one platform provider behind nobody. Our customers need all three layers of service, and high quality in those layers."

Oracle Private Cloud

His second announcement was Oracle Private Cloud, which will run on Fusion.

"Applications like PeopleSoft and Siebel will run in our private cloud, because Oracle middleware and databases run in the Oracle Private Cloud," said Ellison, explaining that anything that runs in the firm's existing services will also work in its new private cloud offering as the platform operates the same technology.

"It's an extension of the Oracle [public] Cloud. You can't tell the difference, the software is identical," he said.

"Oracle is committed to delivering services at all three levels of the cloud, but that doesn't mean we forget the lessons of the last 20 years of working with computers. Industry standards are still important. All the code is written in Java, the database runs industry-standard SQL. Scalability and reliability are very important, it's no less important than if you were running it in your own datacentre."

[Turn to next page]