Oracle and Microsoft unveil cloud interoperability partnership

Services run in Azure will now be able to connect seamlessly with Oracle's databases in the cloud

Oracle and Microsoft have entered into a partnership to allow interoperability across Oracle Cloud and Azure. Services running in Azure will now be able to connect seamlessly with Oracle's databases in the cloud.

In a press release, Oracle says the move will make it possible to split workloads, with one part running in Oracle's cloud and another in Azure. Sharing networking via low-latency, private interconnect of ExpressRoute and Oracle FastConnect and with unified identity and access management the two parts will interct seamlessly, the companies claim.

The release gives an example use case of "running Oracle E-Business Suite or Oracle JD Edwards on Azure against an Oracle Autonomous Database running on Exadata infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud."

The new capabilities unveiled today include the ability of joint customers of Microsoft and Oracle to extend their on-premises data centres to both clouds, although currently this direct interconnect is only available in two US regions.

Unified single sign-on facility and automated user provisioning are now available, allowing users to manage resources across both clouds, and Oracle applications can use Azure Active Directory as the identity provider and for conditional access, although this feature is still in early preview mode.

There is support for both custom applications and packaged Oracle applications including JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Oracle Retail and Hyperion to run on Azure, accessing RAC, Exadata or Autonomous databases running in Oracle Cloud.

Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft's Cloud and AI division, said in a statement: "With Oracle's enterprise expertise, this alliance is a natural choice for us as we help our joint customers accelerate the migration of enterprise applications and databases to the public cloud."

Don Johnson, executive vice president, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) said: "Oracle and Microsoft have served enterprise customer needs for decades. With this partnership, our joint customers can migrate their entire set of existing applications to the cloud without having to re-architect anything, preserving the large investments they have already made."

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